Husker du?

Sven Bernecker develops a theory of propositional memory that is at odds with the received epistemic theory of memory. On Bernecker’s account the belief that is remembered must be true, but it need not constitute knowledge, nor even have been true at the time it was acquired. I examine his reasons for thinking the epistemic theory of memory is false and mount a defense of the epistemic theory.     

Different components of working memory have different relationships with different mathematical skills

A comprehensive working memory battery and tests of mathematical skills were administered to 90 children-41 in Year 1 (5-6 years of age) and 49 in Year 3 (7-8 years of age). Working memory could explain statistically significant variance in number writing, magnitude judgment, and single-digit arithmetic, but the different components of working memory had different relationships with the different skills. Visual-spatial sketchpad (VSSP) functioning predicted unique variance in magnitude judgments and number writing. Central executive functioning explained unique variance in the addition accuracy of Year 1 children. The unique variance explained in Year 3 multiplication explained by phonological loop functioning just missed conventional levels of significance (p=.06). The results are consistent with the VSSP having a role in the development of number writing and magnitude judgments but a lesser role in early arithmetic.     

Liking and response latency in teammate identification: processing delays below conscious awareness?

Success in fast-ball sports relies on many factors which interact at both movement and cognitive levels. Players must recognize their teammates and decide whether to pass the ball to create or take advantage of scoring affordances. Previous research has shown athletes can identify teammates from brief visual displays during fast-ball sports and this is related to the amount of time individuals train together. However, it is likely other factors also affect recognition and, consequently, decision making related to ball passing. The present study extended the Teammate Identification (TM-ID) paradigm to examine magnitude of liking of one's teammates in relation to response time components of TM-ID. An increase in movement time was found for identifying a swimmer who was the observer's "least liked" teammate, which suggests that processes below conscious awareness may influence the time taken for sport actions directed toward specific teammates, such as ball passing.     

Obsessive beliefs predict cognitive behavior therapy outcome for obsessive compulsive disorder

Cognitive accounts of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) assert that core beliefs are crucial to the development, maintenance, and treatment of the disorder. There are a number of obsessive beliefs that are considered fundamental to OCD, including personal responsibility, threat estimation, perfectionism, need for certainty, importance of thoughts, and thought control. The present study investigated if pretreatment severity of obsessive beliefs, as well as the change in obsessive beliefs following treatment, predicted intensive, residential cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) treatment outcome. A series of hierarchical regression analyses were carried out to investigate the relations between obsessive beliefs and treatment outcome. Results indicated that inflated pretreatment responsibility/threat estimation beliefs were significantly related to less overall obsessive compulsive (OC) symptom reduction at discharge, explaining 2% of the overall variance. Changes in obsessive beliefs broadly, and importance/control of thoughts specifically, were positively related to overall OC symptom reduction at discharge, respectively explaining 18% and 3.6% variance. Results are modestly consistent with a number of theoretical models, which argue that inflated responsibility, threat estimation, and thought control are important to the maintenance and treatment of OCD.     

The Functional Forecast Model of Emotion Expression Processing

Fleeting nonverbal emotion expressions trigger a variety of spontaneous responses in human observers. To account for these effects, we introduce a functional forecast model (FFM) of emotion expression processing. The FFM assumes that emotion expressions provide timely forecasts of impending events. Responses to these forecasts are adaptive and may be learned or innately prepared, but in either case, observers need not infer mental states to exhibit immediate responses to emotion expressions. We postulate a diffuse route that operates pre‐attentively and activates appetitive and defensive motivational systems in response to gross affective meaning relevant to imminent environmental threats and available or scarce survival resources. We postulate a focal route that requires attention to efficiently and spontaneously activate specific, though tacit behavioral expectations. We explain how the FFM accounts for a variety of responses to emotion expressions, including physiological responses, affective responses, behavioral responses, trait attributions, and emotion recognition. Lastly, we describe how the FFM relates to other models of emotion, and describe future directions based on the model.     

Attentional sensitization of unconscious visual processing: Top-down influences on masked priming

Classical theories of automaticity assume that automatic processes elicited by unconscious stimuli are autonomous and independent of higher-level cognitive influences. In contrast to these classical conceptions, we argue that automatic processing depends on attentional amplification of task-congruent processing pathways and propose an attentional sensitization model of unconscious visual processing: According to this model, unconscious visual processing is automatic in the sense that it is initiated without deliberate intention. However, unconscious visual processing is susceptible to attentional top-down control and is only elicited if the cognitive system is configured accordingly. In this article, we describe our attentional sensitization model and review recent evidence demonstrating attentional influences on subliminal priming, a prototypical example of an automatic process. We show that subliminal priming (a) depends on attentional resources, (b) is susceptible to stimulus expectations, (c) is influenced by action intentions, and (d) is modulated by task sets. These data suggest that attention enhances or attenuates unconscious visual processes in congruency with attentional task representations similar to conscious perception. We argue that seemingly paradoxical, hitherto unexplained findings regarding the automaticity of the underlying processes in many cognitive domains can be easily accommodated by our attentional sensitization model. We conclude this review with a discussion of future research questions regar-ding the nature of attentional control of unconscious visual processing.     

Proactive motor control reduces monetary risk taking in gambling

Less supervision by the executive system after disruption of the right prefrontal cortex leads to increased risk taking in gambling because superficially attractive-but risky-choices are not suppressed. Similarly, people might gamble more in multitask situations than in single-task situations because concurrent executive processes usually interfere with each other. In the study reported here, we used a novel monetary decision-making paradigm to investigate whether multitasking could reduce rather than increase risk taking in gambling. We found that performing a task that induced cautious motor responding reduced gambling in a multitask situation (Experiment 1). We then found that a short period of inhibitory training lessened risk taking in gambling at least 2 hr later (Experiments 2 and 3). Our findings indicate that proactive motor control strongly affects monetary risk taking in gambling. The link between control systems at different cognitive levels might be exploited to develop new methods for rehabilitation of addiction and impulse-control disorders.     

Life satisfaction and health related quality of life among low-income medical patients: The mediating influence of self-esteem

This study investigated the relationship between life satisfaction, self-esteem, and perceived health for an ethnically diverse, low SES sample of primary care patients. Results indicated that several specific domains of health-related quality of life (HRQL), including health perception, social functioning, mental health, and energy/fatigue, significantly predicted life satisfaction in this sample of 60 patients. Self-esteem mediated this relationship, partially with health perception and fully with the remaining three domains. The results of this study underscore the importance of healthcare interventions that consider the bidirectional relationship between physical and emotional well-being.