How verbal memory loads consume attention

According to a traditional assumption about working memory, participants retain a series of verbal items for immediate recall using covert verbal rehearsal, without much need for attention. We reassessed this assumption by imposing a speeded, nonverbal choice reaction time (CRT) task following the presentation of each digit in a list to be recalled. When the memory load surpassed a few items, performance on the speeded CRT task became increasingly impaired. This CRT task impairment depended only on attention-related components of working memory; it was not alleviated by the presence of an auditory memory trace that automatically helped the recall of items at the ends of spoken lists. We suggest that attention-demanding refreshing of verbal stimuli occurs along with any covert rehearsal.     

Insights into spared memory capacity in amnestic MCI and Alzheimer's Disease via minimal interference

Impairment on standard tests of delayed recall is often already maximal in the aMCI stage of Alzheimer's Disease. Neuropathological work shows that the neural substrates of memory function continue to deteriorate throughout the progression of the disease, hinting that further changes in memory performance could be tracked by a more sensitive test of delayed recall. Recent work shows that retention in aMCI patients can be raised well above floor when the delay period is devoid of further material - 'Minimal Interference'. This memory enhancement is thought to be the result of improved memory consolidation. Here we used the minimal interference/interference paradigm (word list retention following 10 min of quiet resting vs. picture naming) in a group of 17 AD patients, 25 aMCI patients and 25 controls. We found (1) that retention can be improved significantly by minimal interference in patients with aMCI and patients with mild to moderate AD; (2) that the minimal interference paradigm is sensitive to decline in memory function with disease severity, even when performance on standard tests has reached floor; and (3) that this paradigm can differentiate well (80% sensitivity and 100% specificity) between aMCI patients who progress and do not progress to AD within 2 years. Our findings support the notion that the early memory dysfunction in AD is associated with an increased susceptibility to memory interference and are suggestive of a gradual decline in consolidation capacity with disease progression.     

INGROUP REJECTION AMONG WOMEN: THE ROLE OF PERSONAL INADEQUACY

We examined predictors and outcomes of women's hostility toward other women. Based on a projection model, we hypothesized and tested the theory via structural equation modeling that women's sense of personal inadequacy, the tendency to stereotype, and general anger would predict hostility toward women, and hostility toward women would predict blaming victims of violence and poor relationships with a female friend. Participants were 464 college women with an average age of 28.08. All measures were pencil and paper. Women's hostility toward women served as an intervening variable between a personal sense of inadequacy, tendency to stereotype, blaming women victims of violence, and intimacy with one's best female friend.     

Perceptual Intuitionism

In the recent metaethical literature there has been significant interest in the prospects for what I am denoting ‘Perceptual Intuitionism’: the view that normal ethical agents can and do have non‐inferential justification for first‐order ethical beliefs by having ethical perceptual experiences, e.g., Cullison 2010, McBrayer 2010, Vayrynen 2008. If true, it promises to constitute an independent a posteriori intuitionist epistemology, providing an alternative to intuitionist accounts which posit a priori intuition and/or emotion as sources of non‐inferentially justified ethical beliefs. As it is formulated, it is plausible that a necessary condition for the view is the truth of Ethical Perception: normal ethical agents can and do have perceptual experiences (at least some of which are veridical) as of the instantiation of ethical properties. In this paper a sophisticated and promising account of Ethical Perception is offered. Extant objections are shown to fail. However, it will be argued that it is far from obvious that the account of Perceptual Intuitionism which emerges constitutes an independent alternative to other intuitionist accounts. This is because we have reason to think that ethical perceptual experience may be epistemically dependent on other epistemic sources, e.g. a priori intuition or emotion.