The temporal distribution of autobiographical memory: changes in reliving and vividness over the life span do not explain the reminiscence bump

When autobiographical memories are elicited with word cues, personal events from middle childhood to early adulthood are overrepresented compared to events from other periods. It is, however, unclear whether these memories are also associated with greater recollection. In this online study, we examined whether autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood are recollected more than memories from other lifetime periods. Participants rated personal events that were elicited with cue words on reliving or vividness. Consistent with previous studies, most memories came from the period in which the participants were between 6 and 20 years old. The memories from this period were not relived more or recalled more vividly than memories from other lifetime periods, suggesting that they do not involve more recollection. Recent events had higher levels of reliving and vividness than remote events, and older adults reported a stronger recollective experience than younger adults.     

A dynamic computational model of employees goal transformation: Using self-determination theory

Following self-determination theory, this paper investigates the relations of employees’ perceptions of supervisors’ autonomy-supportive or controlling environments to their intrinsic or extrinsic work goals using both a field study and a computational dynamics model (Vancouver and Weinhardt in Org Res Methods 15(4):602–623, 2012), which is a recent and innovative technique. In Study 1, we did an empirical study with 128 employees over a half-year period and found that employees’ perceptions of supervisors’ autonomy-supportive environments satisfied employees’ basic psychological needs and promoted their intrinsic goals; controlling environments frustrated their basic needs and promoted their extrinsic goals. In Study 2, we used a system dynamics model to simulate the change in employees’ extrinsic goals, and the results showed that perceptions of supervisors’ autonomy-supportive environments related to the transformation of employees’ extrinsic goals. The study contributes by demonstrating that employees’ perception of supervisors’ environments could be a reason for employees’ different goal orientations, and it contributes by simulating the use of the dynamic process of goal transformation in research.

     

An evaluation of touch on a large request: a field setting

The effect of touch on compliance to a request has traditionally been tested with small solicitation (answer to a small questionnaire, give a dime to a confederate ....). In our experiment a larger request was evaluated. Passersby, 53 men and 67 women, were asked by two confederates to look after a large and very excited dog for 10 minutes because each wanted to go into a pharmacy where animals were prohibited. In half of the cases, subjects were touched during the request. Analysis showed that, when touched, 55% of the subjects agreed with the request whereas 35% only in the no-touch control condition agreed. This finding indicates that touch was positively associated with the subjects' compliance (p<.03).     

Impact of right hemispheric damage on a hierarchy of complexity evidenced in young normal subjects

The occurrence of a right-hemisphere lesion can interfere with pragmatic abilities and particularly with the processing of non-literal speech acts in which the listener has to identify the speaker's intention. The aim of this study was to test RHD subjects' ability to process non-literal speech acts. A chronometric approach to RHD and matched control performance showed that RHD subjects are impaired in the processing of non-literal speech, though they are also sensitive to the hierarchy of complexity among types. Only the processing of indirect speech acts was not shown to differ from that of normals, probably because the stimuli were of the conventional type. These results show the relevancy of a chronometric approach. They also emphasize the importance of further studying RHD subjects' ability to attribute intentions to protagonists in a short story.     

Testing sequence effects in visual memory: clues for a structural model

In order to probe the internal organization of visual temporary memory, systematic experiments were performed in which the subjects had to memorize a series of 2-5 images then pass recognition tests, either in all possible testing permutations, (in the case of 2-4 images) or in 20 selected permutations (in the case of 5 images). Over 300,000 tests were performed, generating more than 40,000 errors. The error-rates were found to follow simple rules. Both the 3 and the 4 images results are compatible with the presence of only four typical accuracy levels. On the other hand, the reaction time (RT) results revealed surprisingly rich patterns. The RT for recognizing image i at testing stage t > 1 depends upon which image (j) was tested just before. The ranking of the RTs for (j, i) couples evolves from one testing stage to the next. It is proposed that these RTs reflect, in part, the time needed to localize the trace in memory of a given image, starting from the position at which the previous test occurred. If this assumption is correct, the results of this study are providing a picture of the configurations formed by memorized items in the visual temporary store. A hypothetical minimal model, involving several rows of slots on a triangular mesh is proposed to account for the structures in both the error-rates and the RT results.     

Relation between sport and spatial imagery: comparison of three groups of participants

The literature suggests that sport may be considered a spatial activity and that engaging in spatial activities increases the capacity of an individual to implement mental imagery. Moreover, mental rotation calls upon motor processes that are heavily involved in sporting activities. For these reasons, the authors hypothesized that athletes ought to perform mental rotation tasks better than nonathletes. Also, athletes trained to react quickly to constantly changing environments should be faster at processing the information in a mental rotation task than athletes operating in more settled environments. The results of this study show that athletes performed the mental rotation task significantly faster than nonathletes. These results support the suggestion that there is a link between sport and the ability to perform mental image transformations; however, this ability may not be specific to the conditions in which the athlete performs.     

Judgment of conceptual identity in monkeys

Baboons (Papio anubis) were tested on categorization tasks at two different conceptual levels. The monkeys showed their ability (1) to judge as identical or different the objects belonging to two categories, on a perceptual basis, and (2) to perform a judgment of conceptual identity&#x2014;that is, to use the same/different relation between two previously learned categories. This latter experiment represents the first demonstration of judgment of conceptual identity in a monkey species.