How the Learning Path and the Very Structure of a Multifloored Environment Influence Human Spatial Memory

Few studies have explored how humans memorize landmarks in complex multifloored buildings. They have observed that participants memorize an environment either by floors or by vertical columns, influenced by the learning path. However, the influence of the building’s actual structure is not yet known. In order to investigate this influence, we conducted an experiment using an object-in-place protocol in a cylindrical building to contrast with previous experiments which used rectilinear environments. Two groups of 15 participants were taken on a tour with a first person perspective through a virtual cylindrical three-floored building. They followed either a route discovering floors one at a time, or a route discovering columns (by simulated lifts across floors). They then underwent a series of trials, in which they viewed a camera movement reproducing either a segment of the learning path (familiar trials), or performing a shortcut relative to the learning trajectory (novel trials). We observed that regardless of the learning path, participants better memorized the building by floors, and only participants who had discovered the building by columns also memorized it by columns. This expands on previous results obtained in a rectilinear building, where the learning path favoured the memory of its horizontal and vertical layout. Taken together, these results suggest that both learning mode and an environment’s structure influence the spatial memory of complex multifloored buildings.     

How parallel is visual processing in the ventral pathway?

Visual object perception is usually studied by presenting one object at a time at the fovea. However, the world around us is composed of multiple objects. The way our visual system deals with this complexity has remained controversial in the literature. Some models claim that the ventral pathway, a set of visual cortical areas responsible for object recognition, can process only one or very few objects at a time without ambiguity. Other models argue in favor of a massively parallel processing of objects in a scene. Recent experiments in monkeys have provided important data about this issue. The ventral pathway seems to be able to perform complex analyses on several objects simultaneously, but only during a short time period. Subsequently only one or very few objects are explicitly selected and consciously perceived. Here, we survey the implications of these new findings for our understanding of object processing.     

Taking the MAX from neuronal responses

By taking the MAX from their inputs, neurons in the ventral visual pathway might preserve their selectivity even when stimulated with natural scenes. This computational hypothesis has received recent direct physiological evidence from recordings of V4 neuronal responses, in a recent study by Gawne and Martin (2002). Object vision might rely more heavily on parallel processing than generally thought.     

Amygdala oscillations and the consolidation of emotional memories

The amygdala receives multi-modal sensory inputs and projects to virtually all levels of the central nervous system. Via these widespread projections, the amygdala facilitates consolidation of emotionally arousing memories. How the amygdala promotes synaptic plasticity elsewhere in the brain remains unknown, however. Recent work indicates that amygdala neurons show theta activity during emotional arousal, and various types of oscillations during sleep. These synchronized neuronal events could promote synaptic plasticity by facilitating interactions between neocortical storage sites and temporal lobe structures involved in declarative memory.     

Lost ability to automatize task performance in old age

Can elderly adults automatize a new task? To address this question, 10 older adults each performed 10,080 training trials over 12 sessions on an easy but novel task. The psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure was then used to evaluate whether this highly practiced task, when presented as task 2 along with an unpracticed task 1, could proceed automatically. If automatic, task 2 processing should bypass the bottleneck and, therefore, not be delayed while central attention is devoted to task 1, yielding little dual-task interference. This is exactly what Maquestiaux, Laguë-Beauvais, Ruthruff, and Bherer (Memory and Cognition 36:1262-1282, 2008) previously observed for almost all younger adults, even with half the training on a more difficult task. Although extensive training reduced older adults’ reaction times to only 307 ms, a value virtually identical to that attained by Maquestiaux et al.’s (Memory and Cognition 36:1262-1282, 2008) younger adults, the highly practiced task 2 was slowed by 485 ms in the dual-task PRP procedure. Such a large slowing in older adults is striking given the easy tasks and massive amounts of practice. These findings demonstrate a qualitative change with age, in which older adults lose the ability to automatize novel tasks, which cannot be attributed merely to generalized cognitive slowing.     

Quelques remarques sur les ‘Tableaux de Beth’

Sans résumé     

Jean Wahl’s unassailable heritage

Continental Philosophy Review - Despite his unassailable heritage, the passionate thinker to whom Levinas dedicated Totalité et infini has today nearly been forgotten outside France. This...     

Self-esteem, self-confidence, anxiety and claimed self-handicapping: A mediational analysis

Objectives

The purpose of the present study was to examine the mediational role of self-confidence and anxiety in the relationship between self-esteem and claimed self-handicapping in an achievement context.

Design

To test this mediational role, the three-step procedure advocated by Baron and Kenny (1986) was used.

Method

After hearing and reading about specific conditions of performing that were intended to favor invoking excuses for future poor performance, 68 competitive basketball players completed measures of self-esteem, anxiety (cognitive and somatic), self-confidence, and claimed self-handicapping. Then, they warmed-up and carried out a basketball task.

Results

Self-esteem negatively predicted cognitive anxiety and positively predicted self-confidence. In turn, self-confidence negatively predicted claimed self-handicapping and mediated the relationship between self-esteem and claimed self-handicapping. Cognitive and somatic anxieties did not mediate the relationship between self-esteem and claimed self-handicapping. Together, these results suggest that individuals with low self-esteem use more claimed self-handicaps because they have lower self-confidence.

Conclusion

These findings shed light on the psychological processes that lead people with low self-esteem to use strategies of claimed self-handicaps.