Effects of the testing situation on item responding: cause for concern

The effects of faking on personality test scores have been studied previously by comparing (a) experimental groups instructed to fake or answer honestly, (b) subgroups created from a single sample of applicants or nonapplicants by using impression management scores, and (c) job applicants and nonapplicants. In this investigation, the latter 2 methods were used to study the effects of faking on the functioning of the items and scales of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. A variety of item response theory methods were used to detect differential item/test functioning, interpreted as evidence of faking. The presence of differential item/test functioning across testing situations suggests that faking adversely affects the construct validity of personality scales and that it is problematic to study faking by comparing groups defined by impression management scores.     

Listening back in time: Does attention to memory facilitate word-in-noise identification?

The ephemeral nature of spoken words creates a challenge for oral communications where incoming speech sounds must be processed in relation to representations of just-perceived sounds stored in short-term memory. This can be particularly taxing in noisy environments where perception of speech is often impaired or initially incorrect. Usage of prior contextual information (e.g., a semantically related word) has been shown to improve speech in noise identification. In three experiments, we demonstrate a comparable effect of a semantically related cue word placed after an energetically masked target word in improving accuracy of target-word identification. This effect persisted irrespective of cue modality (visual or auditory cue word) and, in the case of cues after the target, lasted even when the cue word was presented up to 4 seconds after the target. The results are framed in the context of an attention to memory model that seeks to explain the cognitive and neural mechanisms behind processing of items in auditory memory.     

Semantic and repetition priming effects for Deese/Roediger—McDermott (DRM) critical items and associates produced by DRM and unrelated study lists

Two lexical decision experiments investigated priming for a critical item (CI, sleep) and its related yoked associate (YA, blanket) when one had been studied in a related Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) list (Experiments 1 & 2) or a list of totally unrelated words (Experiment 2) and the other had been nonstudied. Semantic priming from the related DRM list occurred for nonstudied CIs (but not YAs) regardless of whether the CI received within-test priming from its studied related YA during the lexical decision task, though the effect in the absence of within-test priming averaged across experiments was only significant by a one-tailed test. Also averaged across experiments, repetition priming occurred for both studied CIs and YAs when they had been studied in related DRM lists whether or not there was also within-test priming from a nonstudied related yoked pairmate, though individual effects within the two experiments were sometimes not significant. Repetition priming boosted semantic priming from related DRM lists less for CIs than for YAs, similar to the finding that memory discriminability is poorer for CIs than for YAs in episodic recognition. This smaller repetition priming boost for CIs than for YAs occurred to the same degree when the CIs or YAs were studied in an unrelated list. When nonstudied CIs and YAs were totally unrelated to all previously studied items and separated by 3-7 items in the lexical decision task, aYA produced a small 16 msec priming effect for its CI, averaged across both experiments. The implications of these results for the activation account of the DRM false-memory effect and for single-prime versus multiple-prime long-term semantic priming effects are discussed. The online addendum may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

The effects of frontal lobe functioning and age on veridical and false recall

Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri Older adults’ heightened susceptibility to false memories has been linked to compromised frontal lobe functioning as estimated by Glisky and colleagues’ (Glisky, Polster, & Routhieaux, 1995) neuropsychological battery (e.g., Butler, McDaniel, Dornburg, Price, & Roediger, 2004). This conclusion, however, rests on the untested assumption that young adults have uniformly high frontal functioning. We tested this assumption, and we correlated younger and older adults’ frontal scores with veridical and false recall probabilities with prose materials. Substantial variability in scores on the Glisky battery occurred for younger (and older) adults. However, frontal scores and age were independent contributors to recall probabilities. Frontal functioning is not the sole cause of older adults’ heightened susceptibility to false memories.     

Alpha3-integrins are required for hippocampal long-term potentiation and working memory

Integrins comprise a large family of heterodimeric, transmembrane cell adhesion receptors that mediate diverse neuronal functions in the developing and adult CNS. Recent pharmacological and genetic studies have suggested that beta1-integrins are critical in synaptic plasticity and memory formation. To further define the role of integrins in these processes, we generated a postnatal forebrain and excitatory neuron-specific knockout of alpha3-integrin, one of several binding partners for beta1 subunit. At hippocampal Schaffer collateral-CA1 synapses, deletion of alpha3-integrin resulted in impaired long-term potentiation (LTP). Basal synaptic transmission and paired-pulse facilitation were normal in the absence of alpha3-integrin. Behavioral studies demonstrated that the mutant mice were selectively defective in a hippocampus-dependent, nonmatch-to-place working memory task, but were normal in other hippocampus-dependent spatial tasks. The impairment in LTP and working memory is similar to that observed in beta1-integrin conditional knockout mice, suggesting that alpha3-integrin is the functional binding partner for beta1 for these processes in the forebrain.     

注意捕获的另一扇窗户——无意视盲

观察者集中注意于某个物体或事件的时候,他们经常不能觉察到显著的、与众不同的物体,这种现象被称为“无意视盲”（Inattentional Blindness）。在无意视盲研究中,存在两类实验范式——静态无意视盲和动态无意视盲研究范式。首先,从刺激的感觉显著性、认知显著性、心理工作负荷、定势和期望以及加工能力等方面分析了影响无意视盲的因素;其次,对无意视盲和无意遗忘的争议以及无意视盲是“全或无”还是连续谱的争议也进行了总结;最后,从无意视盲角度出发探讨了内隐注意捕获和外显注意捕获之间的关系     

Spatial learning and memory in the tortoise (Geochelone carbonaria)

A single tortoise (Geochelone carbonaria) was trained in an eight-arm radial maze, with the apparatus and general procedures modeled on those used to demonstrate spatial learning in rats. The tortoise learned to perform reliably above chance, preferentially choosing baited arms, rather than returning to arms previously visited on a trial. Test sessions that examined control by olfactory cues revealed that they did not affect performance. No systematic, stereotyped response patterns were evident. In spite of differences in brain structure, the tortoise showed spatial learning abilities comparable to those observed in mammals.     

Addressing social determinants of health: Supporting ex-offenders’ employment through use of the Systems Theory Framework

There remains a need for counselors well-prepared to work with ex-offenders. As counselors aim to meet ethical obligations toward advocacy, they often seek to address social determinants of health (SDOH) challenges. Those working with ex-offenders should be aware of unique employment challenges ex-offenders may face and possess a baseline knowledge of the justice system for pertinent collaboration. This paper provides an explanation of how the Systems Theory Framework may be used to address ex-offenders’ employment-related needs through addressing SDOH challenges and collaborating with the justice system. Implications for employment counselors, counselor educators, and supervisors and steps for future research conclude.     

Influences of vowel and tone variation on emergent word knowledge: a cross‐linguistic investigation

To learn words, infants must be sensitive to native phonological contrast. While lexical tone predominates as a source of phonemic contrast in human languages, there has been little investigation of the influences of lexical tone on word learning. The present study investigates infants’ sensitivity to tone mispronunciations in two groups of infants. For one group (Chinese learners), tone is phonemic in their native language, and for the second group (English learners), tone is non‐phonemic and constituted suprasegmental variation. In Experiment 1, English learners were trained on novel word–object pairings and tested on their recognition of correct pronunciations, tone and vowel mispronunciations of these words at 18 and 24 months. In Experiment 2a, bilingual English‐Chinese learners were tested on a similar task translated into Chinese at the same age intervals. Results demonstrate that non‐tonal learners treated tonal and vowel substitutions alike as mispronunciations at 18 months but only treated vowel substitutions as mispronunciations at 24 months. Tonal learners treated both tonal and vowel substitutions as mispronunciations at both ages. In Experiment 2b, bilingual non‐tone language learners were tested on the same set of tasks replicating a similar set of results as monolingual non‐tone language learners (Experiment 1). Findings point to an early predisposition to treat tone as a defining characteristic of words regardless of its lexical relevance at 18 months. Between 18 and 24 months, learners appear to ascribe lexical relevance to tone in a language‐specific manner. The current study identifies the influences of tone variation on memories for newly learned words and the time period during which lexical tone – a highly frequent constituent of human languages – actually becomes lexical for early learners. Findings are contextualized with prevailing models of the developing lexicon.