The contribution of metamemory deficits to schizophrenia

A number of recent studies have demonstrated that individuals with schizophrenia display knowledge corruption; that is, they hold false information with strong conviction. This aberration in metamemory is thought to stem from poor memory accuracy in conjunction with impaired discrimination of correct and incorrect judgments in terms of confidence. Thirty-one participants with schizophrenia, along with 61 healthy control participants and 48 control participants with other psychiatric conditions, participated in a computerized source memory task. Whereas no differences in memory accuracy were observed between the group with schizophrenia and the group with other psychiatric diagnoses, knowledge corruption was specifically impaired in those with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia participants showed a significantly decreased confidence gap: They were more confident in errors and less confident in correct responses relative to those in the control groups. Knowledge corruption is theorized to be a potential risk factor for the emergence of delusions.     

Immigration, lack of control and psychological distress: findings from the Oslo Health Study

The aims of this study are to compare the level of psychological distress between Norwegian born and immigrants from countries with different income levels and culture, and to investigate the explanatory effect of socioeconomic and psychosocial factors, with special emphasis on lack of control (powerlessness and self-efficacy). A cross-sectional survey with self-administered questionnaire was conducted in 2000-2001 in a sample of 15,723 adults living in Oslo. Psychological distress was measured by a ten-item shortened version of Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 items, whereas psychosocial variables were measured by various instruments. The results show that the level of psychological distress is significantly higher in immigrants from low- and middle-income countries than in the Norwegian born and the immigrants from high-income countries. They also report more powerlessness, more negative life events, less social support, less income and less paid work. It is concluded that negative life events, mainly related to social network, somatic health and economic situations, as well as lack of social support, are important mediators between immigration from low- and middle-income countries to Norway and psychological distress. Powerlessness also plays a role, but this is mainly because of a concept overlap between psychological distress and powerlessness.     

Spatial distortions induced by multiple visual landmarks: how local distortions combine to produce complex distortion patterns

Visual landmarks introduce systematic distortions into spatial short-term memory for single target positions, the exact form of the distortion depending on the spatial layout of the landmarks. In two experiments, we investigated how the combined effect of two landmarks can be predicted from the effects of individual landmarks. Participants used a mouse cursor to reproduce the positions of briefly presented targets in the context of one, the other, or both landmarks. We found that distortions near a landmark are independent of whether another landmark is present, so that remembered space is partitioned into regions dominated by single landmarks. Interestingly, the display midpoint behaves like a "virtual landmark," with its own pattern of distortion. Results are inconsistent with current models of spatial memory distortions but suggest that attentional processes can lead to enhanced fidelity of salient regions in topographical neural networks while also introducing some spatial biases.     

Superior haptic perceptual selectivity in late-blind and very-low-vision subjects

Blindfolded sighted, congenitally blind, late-blind, and very-low-vision subjects were tested on a tangible version of the embedded-figures test. The results of ANOVAs on accuracy measures yielded superior performance by the very-low-vision and late-blind subjects compared with the blindfolded sighted and congenitally blind participants. Accuracy of the congenitally blind subjects was similar to that of the blindfolded sighted participants. However, all groups of blind subjects were significantly faster than the blindfolded sighted subjects. It is suggested that experience with pictures combined with haptic skill aid perceptual selectivity in touch.     

Egocentric and geocentric frames of reference in memory of large-scale space

This experiment investigated the frames of reference used in memory to represent the spatial structure of a large-scale outdoor environment. Participants learned the locations of eight objects in an unfamiliar city park by walking through the park on one of two prescribed paths that encircled a large rectangular building. The aligned path was oriented with the building; the misaligned path was rotated by 45°. Later, participants pointed to target objects from imagined vantage points using their memories. Pointing accuracy was higher in the aligned than in the misaligned path group, and the patterns of results differed: In the aligned condition, accuracy was higher for imagined headings parallel to legs of the path and for an imagined heading oriented toward a nearby lake, a salient landmark. In the misaligned condition, pointing accuracy was highest for the imagined heading oriented toward the lake, and decreased monotonically with angular distance. These results indicated that locations of objects were mentally represented in terms of frames of reference defined by the environment but selected on the basis of egocentric experience.     

The Validity of “Mini” Simulations for Mexican Retail Salespeople

The use of mini role play simulations was proposed as a means of collecting predictor data in a low-cost, time-efficient, and reliable manner. Mini role play simulations were developed for the purpose of measuring sales ability. In order to evaluate the efficacy of using the mini role play simulations, a concurrent validation study was conducted with 94 salespeople from a large, Mexican retail chain. Results indicated that the simulations significantly predicted performance and also added to the prediction of performance after controlling for a biodata instrument.     

Video game experience and its influence on visual attention parameters: An investigation using the framework of the Theory of Visual Attention (TVA)

Experts with video game experience, in contrast to non-experienced persons, are superior in multiple domains of visual attention. However, it is an open question which basic aspects of attention underlie this superiority. We approached this question using the framework of Theory of Visual Attention (TVA) with tools that allowed us to assess various parameters that are related to different visual attention aspects (e.g., perception threshold, processing speed, visual short-term memory storage capacity, top-down control, spatial distribution of attention) and that are measurable on the same experimental basis. In Experiment 1, we found advantages of video game experts in perception threshold and visual processing speed; the latter being restricted to the lower positions of the used computer display. The observed advantages were not significantly moderated by general person-related characteristics such as personality traits, sensation seeking, intelligence, social anxiety, or health status. Experiment 2 tested a potential causal link between the expert advantages and video game practice with an intervention protocol. It found no effects of action video gaming on perception threshold, visual short-term memory storage capacity, iconic memory storage, top-down control, and spatial distribution of attention after 15 days of training. However, observations of a selected improvement of processing speed at the lower positions of the computer screen after video game training and of retest effects are suggestive for limited possibilities to improve basic aspects of visual attention (TVA) with practice.     

Accurate Judgments of Neuroticism at Zero Acquaintance: A Question of Relevance

Prior studies have consistently found a surprising inaccuracy of people's neuroticism judgments at zero acquaintance. Based on the Realistic Accuracy Model (Funder, 1995), we hypothesize that this is due to a lack of relevance of the situation in which targets are typically observed. Fifty participants were videotaped in a highly trait‐relevant (i.e., socially stressful) situation as well as three less relevant situations. An aggregate of self‐reports and informant reports was used as the accuracy criterion. Four independent groups of unacquainted observers judged participants' neuroticism based on these short video sequences. Results showed that neuroticism judgments were significantly more accurate for the most trait‐relevant situation compared with the other three situations. This finding can be explained using lens model analyses: Only in the most relevant situation did neuroticism predict both visual nervousness and vocal nervousness, both of which in turn predicted neuroticism judgments by lay observers. Our findings show that strangers are sensitive to interindividual differences in neuroticism as long as targets are observed in a trait‐relevant situation.     

The eyes grasp,the hands see: Metric category knowledge transfers between vision and touch

Categorization of seen objects is often determined by the shapes of objects. However, shape is not exclusive to the visual modality: The haptic system also is expert at identifying shapes. Hence, an important question for understanding shape processing is whether humans store separate modality-dependent shape representations, or whether information is integrated into one multisensory representation. To answer this question, we created a metric space of computer-generated novel objects varying in shape. These objects were then printed using a 3-D printer, to generate tangible stimuli. In a categorization experiment, participants first explored the objects visually and haptically. We found that both modalities led to highly similar categorization behavior. Next, participants were trained either visually or haptically on shape categories within the metric space. As expected, visual training increased visual performance, and haptic training increased haptic performance. Importantly, however, we found that visual training also improved haptic performance, and vice versa. Two additional experiments showed that the location of the categorical boundary in the metric space also transferred across modalities, as did heightened discriminability of objects adjacent to the boundary. This observed transfer of metric category knowledge across modalities indicates that visual and haptic forms of shape information are integrated into a shared multisensory representation.     

Perfectionism and Life Aspirations in Intrinsically and Extrinsically Religious Individuals

Religiosity is related to positive health and life satisfaction but the pathways through which this occurs have not been clearly delineated. The purpose of this study was to examine potential mediators of the relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity and negative affect and life satisfaction. Perfectionism and life aspirations are two possible pathways through which religious orientation is related to outcome. It was hypothesized that adaptive perfectionism and intrinsic life aspirations would act as mediators between intrinsic religiosity and negative affect and life satisfaction, and that maladaptive perfectionism and extrinsic life aspirations would act as mediators between the extrinsic religiosity and negative affect and life satisfaction. Two consecutive samples of religious college students (N = 540 and N = 485) completed measures of the Age Universal Religious Orientation Index, the Frost Multi-Dimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Aspiration Index, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Intrinsic religiosity had a direct negative relationship with negative affect and positive relationship with life satisfaction. Contrary to the hypotheses, intrinsic religiosity had its strongest indirect effect via maladaptive perfectionism such that increased intrinsic religiosity was related to decreased maladaptive perfectionism which in turn lead to better negative affect and life satisfaction. Extrinsic religiosity was related to increased maladaptive perfectionism and thereby indirectly contributed to worse negative affect and life satisfaction. Interestingly, when the effects of maladaptive perfectionism were controlled, the direct effects of extrinsic religiosity were related to reduced negative affect and increased life satisfaction. Overall, the strongest mediator in this study of both intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity was maladaptive perfectionism, with intrinsic religiosity related to decreased maladaptive perfectionism and extrinsic religiosity related to increased maladaptive perfectionism.