Looking ahead from age 6 to 13: A deeper insight into the development of planning ability

Planning ability gradually increases throughout childhood. However, it remains unknown whether this is attributable to global factors such as an increased ability and willingness to inhibit premature, impulsive responding, or due to the availability of specific planning operations, such as being able to mentally plan ahead more steps (‘search depth’) or to derive a clear temporal order of goals by the task layout (‘goal hierarchy’). Here, we studied the development of planning ability with respect to these global and problem‐specific aspects (search depth and goal hierarchy) of performance in 178 children from 6 to 13 years using the Tower of London task. As expected, global performance gradually developed with age. In accordance, planning durations increasingly reflected global problem demands with longer pre‐planning in harder problems. Furthermore, specific planning parameters revealed that children were increasingly capable of mentally searching ahead more steps. In contrast, the ability to derive a goal hierarchy did not show age‐related changes. While the global development of planning performance and adaptive planning durations were proposed to primarily reflect enhanced self‐monitoring, the specific increase in search depth across childhood that most likely proceeds until young adult age represents more directly planning‐related processes. Thus, development of planning ability is supported by multiple contributions.     

Evidence for time-based models of free recall

Is memory temporally organized? According to temporal distinctiveness models of memory, temporally isolated items should be better remembered than temporally crowded items in free recall tasks. Here, we tested this class of model by varying the temporal isolation of items either predictably (Experiment 1) or unpredictably (Experiment 2) in a free recall task. In both experiments, item recall probability increased as a function of the temporal gaps both before and after the item. The results are taken as support for temporal distinctiveness models of memory, in which items are represented and recalled in terms of their positions along a temporal dimension.     

The effects of list-method directed forgetting on recognition memory

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois It is an almost universally accepted claim that the list-method procedure of inducing directed forgetting does not affect recognition. However, previous studies have omitted a critical comparison in reaching this conclusion. This article reports evidence that recognition of material learnedafter cue presentation is superior for conditions in which the material that preceded cue presentation was designated as to-be-forgotten. Because the absence of an effect of directed-forgetting instructions on recognition is the linchpin of the theoretical claim that retrieval inhibition and not selective rehearsal underlies that effect, the present results call into question the need to postulate a role for inhibition in directed forgetting.     

Defining and diagnosing involuntary emotional expression disorder

Uncontrollable episodes of emotional expression occur in a variety of neurological conditions. This emotional disinhibition syndrome is characterized by episodes of crying or laughing that are unrelated to or out of proportion to the eliciting stimulus. This syndrome is common among patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, stroke, and traumatic brain injury and a variety of terms and definitions have been used to describe it. The confusing nomenclature has been a barrier to understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of this disorder. The authors propose a unifying term, involuntary emotional expression disorder (IEED), and provide diagnostic criteria for this disorder.     

Social meanings in Christmas consumption: an exploratory study of UK celebrants' consumption rituals

• Although much has been written about the celebration of Christmas from a variety of perspectives, limited attention has been paid in the consumer behaviour literature to understanding the behaviours of consumers surrounding this event. Apart from insights gained from prior work on consumption rituals and meanings of festivities, our knowledge of meaning creation through Christmas consumption is partial, and written mainly from a North American perspective. Since consumer behaviour is shaped by cultural and social contexts, understanding the relationship between consumption objects and the social meanings that consumers ascribe to them is a research imperative. This paper explores the ways in which the British Christmas is consumed as a shared consumption experience, by bringing together two different approaches taken by consumer researchers and sociologists to analysing social consumption patterns. These are drawn from structuralist and post‐structuralist thinking. The findings of an exploratory qualitative study are used to demonstrate how an enhanced understanding of consumption meanings associated with this particular cultural context can lead to new insights into how consumers create social meanings through special, as well as ordinary, behaviours.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lateralized scratching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Evidence of a functional asymmetry during arousal

This study evaluated laterality in scratching by chimpanzees (n = 89) during socially arousing circumstances. Hand use and the side of the body scratched was recorded during a baseline and experimental condition. In the experimental condition, chimpanzees were shown a video of other conspecifics sharing, fighting over, and consuming a watermelon. Self-touches were categorized as either rubs or scratches. The chimpanzees showed a significant right hand bias for rubbing and also significantly directed the rubs to the right side of the body. For scratching, the chimpanzees showed no hand preference but a significant bias for scratching on the left side of the body. These results support the view that the right hemisphere regulates the autonomic nervous system during arousal.