Gamma oscillations distinguish true from false memories

ABSTRACT— To test whether distinct patterns of electrophysiological activity prior to a response can distinguish true from false memories, we analyzed intracranial electroencephalographic recordings while 52 patients undergoing treatment for epilepsy performed a verbal free-recall task. These analyses revealed that the same pattern of gamma-band (28–100 Hz) oscillatory activity that predicts successful memory formation at item encoding—increased gamma power in the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and left temporal lobe—reemerges at retrieval to distinguish correct from incorrect responses. The timing of these oscillatory effects suggests that self-cued memory retrieval begins in the hippocampus and then spreads to the cortex. Thus, retrieval of true, as compared with false, memories induces a distinct pattern of gamma oscillations, possibly reflecting recollection of contextual information associated with past experience.     

Staying in or moving away from structured activities: Explanations involving parents and peers

Adolescent participation in structured activities, meaning those with adult leaders, regular meetings, and skill-building activities, is related to good adjustment. Participation in unstructured, unsupervised, peer-oriented activities is related to poor adjustment. Structured activity participation is high in early adolescence and then declines, raising the question of why youths leave structured activities. The authors examined explanations involving parents and peers. They used longitudinal data from 861 youths (ages 13-17 years). Results showed that, compared with youths who stayed in structured activities, those who switched to hanging out on the streets were less likely to have peers in structured activities and had less positive feelings about the home context and more negative interactions with parents. In addition, delinquency predicted switching to hanging out in the streets and never joining structured activities in the first place. The results concerning parents support a theoretical explanation of how parents might unintentionally affect youths' leisure choices. Furthermore, the authors found some indications that positive feelings at home might protect youths who switch from structured activities to hanging out on the streets from increases in delinquency.     

Intentions and expectations in temporal binding

Recently, it has been shown that the perceived times of voluntary movements and their effects are perceived as shifted towards each other. This temporal binding phenomenon was explained by an integrated representation of movement and effect, facilitating operant learning and the experience of intentionality. Here, we investigated whether temporal binding depends on explicit intentional attributions. In Experiment 1, participants intended to either produce or avoid producing an effect (a tone) by the timing of their movements, with the ratio of success being fixed at 2:1. In Experiments 2 and 3, the influence of the action-effect contingency ratio on temporal binding was controlled for by removing the intentional attribution of the effect. The results indicate that temporal binding is a general associative mechanism that facilitates the learning of movement-effect contingencies. Beyond that, temporal binding is sensitive to explicit intentional attributions, which selectively enhance the link between an intentional movement and the effect a moving agent intends to produce.     

Priming of semantic classifications by novel subliminal prime words

Four experiments demonstrate category congruency priming by subliminal prime words that were never seen as targets in a valence-classification task (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and a gender-classification task (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, overlap in terms of word fragments of one or more letters between primes and targets of different valences was larger than between primes and targets of the same valence. In Experiments 2 and 3, the sets of prime words and target words were completely disjoint in terms of used letters. In Experiment 4, pictures served as targets. The observed subliminal priming effects for novel primes cannot be driven by partial analysis of primes at the word-fragment level; they suggest instead that primes were processed semantically as whole words contingent upon prime duration.     

Social Comparison and Information Transmission in the Work Context

In the workplace, people can experience various types of failure and frustrations resulting in spontaneous social comparisons with other colleagues who are more (upward comparison) or less (downward comparison) successful. Upward comparisons especially have been shown to increase envy toward the outperforming benchmark colleague, which could negatively affect social interaction with this colleague. In line with this, our results consistently show that upward comparisons are associated with higher levels of experienced envy, as well as with a lower transmission rate of high-quality information. By contrast, type of social comparison had no impact on the amount of transmitted low-quality, work-relevant information. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Regulatory fit as a determinant of sport performance: How to succeed in a soccer penalty-shooting

ObjectivesAccording to regulatory focus theory, goal pursuit can be achieved by either keeping a promotion or a prevention focus [Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300; Higgins, E. T. (2000). Making a good decision: value from fit. American Psychologist, 55, 1217–1230]. Moreover, it has been assumed that people experience fit when they pursue a goal in a manner that sustains their chronic orientation and that fit has a positive impact on performance. In two studies, we investigated the significance of regulatory focus and fit in the realm of sports performance, such as the success rate in a soccer penalty-shooting task.Methods and ResultsIn a pilot study, we assessed the chronic regulatory orientation of 211 athletes from different sports. Among others, we found more promotion focus with attackers than with defenders. In the main study, we assessed the chronic regulatory orientation of 20 soccer players who took part in a penalty-shooting task. For half of them, the task was described in terms of promotion, for the others in terms of prevention. We found a positive impact of regulatory fit on scoring performance.ConclusionsOur findings demonstrate a great potential of regulatory focus theory for the understanding and enhancement of sport performance. The assessment of athletes' chronic regulatory orientation could be of importance for the selection of athletes, the adjustment of tactics and strategies, and coaches' framing of instructions.     

How to make your own response boxes: A step-by-step guide for the construction of reliable and inexpensive parallel-port response pads from computer mice

Psychological research is based in large parts on response latencies, which are often registered by keypresses on a standard computer keyboard. Recording response latencies with a standard keyboard is problematic because keypresses are buffered within the keyboard hardware before they are signaled to the computer, adding error variance to the recorded latencies. This can be circumvented by using external response pads connected to the computer's parallel port. In this article, we describe how to build inexpensive, reliable, and easy-to-use response pads with six keys from two standard computer mice that can be connected to the PC's parallel port. We also address the problem of recording data from the parallel port with different software packages under Microsoft's Windows XP.     

Films for eliciting emotional states in children

Standardized sets of films have been shown to be effective for eliciting emotional states in adults, but no comparable validated stimuli are available for children. We therefore examined the effects of three pre-selected film clips each of 3-min duration in eliciting a pleasant, neutral and unpleasant emotional state in 297 children aged between 6 and 12 years. After the films were presented on a video projector, affective ratings were obtained with the Self-Assessment-Manikin on the emotional dimensions of valence and arousal. Increasing pleasure ratings were observed from the unpleasant to the neutral to the pleasant film. Associated arousal ratings were stronger for the unpleasant and pleasant films compared to the neutral film. Overall, results showed successful elicitation of targeted emotional states only marginally influenced by age, gender or prior experience with the films. The use of these films is therefore suggested for future studies on emotions in children.     

Fast-dm: A free program for efficient diffusion model analysis

In the present article, a flexible and fast computer program, called fast-dm, for diffusion model data analysis is introduced. Fast-dm is free software that can be downloaded from the authors' websites. The program allows estimating all parameters of Ratcliff's (1978) diffusion model from the empirical response time distributions of any binary classification task. Fast-dm is easy to use: it reads input data from simple text files, while program settings are specified by commands in a control file. With fast-dm, complex models can be fitted, where some parameters may vary between experimental conditions, while other parameters are constrained to be equal across conditions. Detailed directions for use of fast-dm are presented, as well as results from three short simulation studies exemplifying the utility of fast-dm.     

Das Ausmaß von Müdigkeit und Erschöpfbarkeit in der über 60-jährigen Normalbevölkerung in Deutschland

In a community-based random sample of 622 elderly persons over 60 years of age, fatigue was assessed by means of the multidimensional fatigue inventory (MFI; a self-assessment measure). Higher fatigue values were found with increasing age, particularly physical feelings of fatigue, reduced activity and reduced motivation. Fatigue was associated with depression, with a low health-related quality of life and with subjective physical complaints. Distinct fatigue symptoms in the elderly should therefore be regarded as possible indicators for somatic and/or psychological burdens and should receive diagnostic and therapeutic attention. In the present paper, mean values and percentiles for different age groups over 60 years are given as norm values for the normal population over 60 years of age.