Psychosocial stages and the accessibility of autobiographical memories across the life cycle

Older adults recalled memories from each decade of life. Memories were classified in terms of the psychosocial stages to which their content corresponded. For the majority of memories it was found that age at encoding corresponded to when specific psychosocial stages would have been most likely to have occurred. In a second experiment older adults recalled memories to cues drawn from psychosocial stages and the same pattern of findings was observed. These findings demonstrate that the goals of the self play a major role in both the encoding and accessibility of autobiographical memories, and they also provide support for Erikson's psychosocial theory of development (1950, 1997).     

Well-being and the anticipation of future positive experiences: The role of income, social networks, and planning ability

The present study aims to answer two questions: (1) are expectations of future positive experiences related to well-being in the general population?; and (2) what factors (social, psychological, economic) enable people to have expectations of future positive experiences. A community sample (N = 84) was assessed on a measure of anticipation of future positive and negative experiences, factors that might enable positive anticipation (measures of income, social networks, planning ability, and affective capacity) and measures of subjective well-being (positive and negative affect and life satisfaction). Subjective well-being was related to having more anticipated positive experiences, which was in turn related to having a large social network, having a high number of steps in plans to achieve goals, and, more marginally, to having a high household income.     

Modality-constrained statistical learning of tactile, visual, and auditory sequences

The authors investigated the extent to which touch, vision, and audition mediate the processing of statistical regularities within sequential input. Few researchers have conducted rigorous comparisons across sensory modalities; in particular, the sense of touch has been virtually ignored. The current data reveal not only commonalities but also modality constraints affecting statistical learning across the senses. To be specific, the authors found that the auditory modality displayed a quantitative learning advantage compared with vision and touch. In addition, they discovered qualitative learning biases among the senses: Primarily, audition afforded better learning for the final part of input sequences. These findings are discussed in terms of whether statistical learning is likely to consist of a single, unitary mechanism or multiple, modality-constrained ones.     

Working memory capacity and fluid intelligence are strongly related constructs: comment on Ackerman, Beier, and Boyle (2005)

The authors agree with P. L. Ackerman, M. E. Beier, and M. O. Boyle (2005; see record 2004-22408-002) that working memory capacity (WMC) is not isomorphic with general fluid intelligence (Gf) or reasoning ability. However, the WMC and Gf/reasoning constructs are more strongly associated than Ackerman et al. (2005) indicate, particularly when considering the outcomes of latent-variable studies. The authors' reanalysis of 14 such data sets from 10 published studies, representing more than 3,100 young-adult subjects, suggests a strong correlation between WMC and Gf/reasoning factors (median r=.72), indicating that the WMC and Gf constructs share approximately 50% of their variance. This comment also clarifies the authors' "executive attention" view of WMC, it demonstrates that WMC has greater discriminant validity than Ackerman et al. (2005) implied, and it suggests some future directions and challenges for the scientific study of the convergence of WMC, attention control, and intelligence.     

Twelve- and 16-month-old infants recognize properties of mentioned absent things

Absent reference comprehension is a critical achievement of early development, yet little is known about its emergence. In the current study, 12- and 16-month-old infants' recognition of properties of mentioned absent things was used as an index of absent reference comprehension. Infants were presented with displays matching the color and prior spatial location of a mentioned absent object and displays matching the color and prior spatial location of a non-mentioned absent object. Infants could reveal their comprehension of absent reference by directing more looking and gesturing at the display matching the mentioned absent object than at the display matching the non-mentioned absent object. Infants at both ages revealed some tendency to do so, but infants at 16 months revealed more advanced understanding--infants at 16 months, but not at 12 months, coordinated their attention to the display matching properties of the mentioned absent thing with looks to the speaker. Implications for the infants' understanding of communicative intentions are discussed.     

Improving fairness in coverage decisions: performance expectations for quality improvement

Patients and physicians often perceive the current health care system to be unfair, in part because of the ways in which coverage decisions appear to be made. To address this problem the Ethical Force Program, a collaborative effort to create quality improvement tools for ethics in health care, has developed five content areas specifying ethical criteria for fair health care benefits design and administration. Each content area includes concrete recommendations and measurable expectations for performance improvement, which can be used by those organizations involved in the design and administration of health benefits packages, such as purchasers, health plans, benefits consultants, and practitioner groups.     

The time-course of negative priming: Little evidence for episodic trace retrieval

An episodic trace retrieval (ETR) explanation of negative priming (NP) predicts that the NP effect should be sensitive to the timing of delays between trials (Neill & Valdes, 1992; Neill, Valdes, Terry, & Gorfein, 1992). Specifically, according to ETR, (1) NP is affected by the response-stimulus interval (RSI) before the prime display, and (2) NP decays when RSI is manipulated within groups but not when RSI is manipulated between groups. Two localization tasks and two identification tasks are reported that question the reliability of these findings. The results suggest that there is little in the time-course literature that uniquely supports the ETR theory of NP. Instead, the results seem more compatible with either a dual-mechanism account (Kane, May, Hasher, Rahhal, & Stoltzfus, 1997) or an integrative approach that incorporates both memory and attention processes (Milliken, Joordens, Merikle, & Seiffert, 1998).     

Working memory, short-term memory, and general fluid intelligence: a latent-variable approach.

A study was conducted in which 133 participants performed 11 memory tasks (some thought to reflect working memory and some thought to reflect short-term memory), 2 tests of general fluid intelligence, and the Verbal and Quantitative Scholastic Aptitude Tests. Structural equation modeling suggested that short-term and working memories reflect separate but highly related constructs and that many of the tasks used in the literature as working memory tasks reflect a common construct. Working memory shows a strong connection to fluid intelligence, but short-term memory does not. A theory of working memory capacity and general fluid intelligence is proposed: The authors argue that working memory capacity and fluid intelligence reflect the ability to keep a representation active, particularly in the face of interference and distraction. The authors also discuss the relationship of this capability to controlled attention, and the functions of the prefrontal cortex.     

The Space of Argumentation: Urban Design, Civic Discourse, and the Dream of the Good City

In this paper, I explore connections between two disciplines not typically linked: argumentation theory and urban design. I first trace historical ties between the art of reasoned discourse and the idea of civic virtue. I next analyze discourse norms implicit in three theories of urban design: Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), and Peter Katz's The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community (1994). I then propose a set of settlement issues of potential interest to both urban designers and argumentation theorists: size, density, heterogeneity, publicity, security, and identity. I conclude by suggesting that the good city be seen as both a spatial and a discursive entity. From such a perspective, good public discourse is dependent, at least in part, on good public space; and good public space is defined, at least in part, as a context conducive to good public discourse.     

Very long-term retention of a novel

This study investigated the very long-term retention of a full-length novel originally studied as part of a university undergraduate course. One hundred and forty former students completed three tests designed to assess retention of Charles Dickens' Hard Times. Retention intervals ranged from 3 to 39 months. Subjects' responses when they were asked to report their most vivid and enduring memory of the novel were consistent with story grammar models which claim that components of a story which are higher in a hierarchy are remembered better than those lower in the hierarchy. A free recall test of the names and roles of the characters in the novel found that retention of both declined rapidly in the first few months following acquisition, that names were forgotten more quickly than roles, and that retention of both had stabilized above baseline before the longest retention interval. These data are interpreted in terms of a schema account of memory retention, in which retention of schematic knowledge (roles), but not non-schematic knowledge (names) can be mediated by abstract knowledge structures. The results of a fact verification test showed that memory for events of high importance in the novel was better than memory for events of low importance, consistent with models that suggest that texts and stories are represented hierarchically in memory. Confidence ratings also declined over time and showed that subjects generally assessed the accuracy of their responses correctly. The significant predictors of memory for the novel were retention interval and the mark obtained on a coursework essay on Hard Times.