Emotional intensity predicts autobiographical memory experience

College students generated autobiographical memories from distinct emotional categories that varied in valence (positive vs. negative) and intensity (high vs. low). They then rated various perceptual, cognitive, and emotional properties for each memory. The distribution of these emotional memories favored a vector model over a circumplex model. For memories of all specific emotions, intensity accounted for significantly more variance in autobiographical memory characteristics than did valence or age of the memory. In two additional experiments, we examined multiple memories of emotions of high intensity and positive or negative valence and of positive valence and high or low intensity. Intensity was a more consistent predictor of autobiographical memory properties than was valence or the age of the memory in these experiments as well. The general effects of emotion on autobiographical memory properties are due primarily to intensity differences in emotional experience, not to benefits or detriments associated with a specific valence.     

Predicting preschoolers' externalizing behaviors from toddler temperament,conflict, and maternal negativity

Rarely have researchers elucidated early childhood precursors of externalizing behaviors for boys and girls from a normative sample. Toddlers (N = 104; 52 girls) were observed interacting with a same-sex peer and their mothers, and indices of conflict-aggression, emotion and behavior dysregulation, parenting, and child externalizing problems were obtained. Results indicated that boys initiated more conflictual-aggressive interactions as toddlers and had more externalizing difficulties 2 years later, yet girls' (not boys') conflict-aggressive initiations at age 2 were related to subsequent externalizing problems. When such initiations were controlled for, emotional-behavioral undercontrol at age 2 also independently predicted externalizing problems at age 4. Moreover, the relation between conflict-aggressive initiations at age 2 and externalizing problems at age 4 was strongest for dysregulated toddlers. Finally, the relation between age 2 conflict-aggressive initiations and age 4 externalizing problems was strongest for those toddlers who incurred high levels of maternal negativity. These findings illustrate temperament by parenting connections in the development of externalizing problems.     

The "what" and "where" of object representations in infancy

Four-month-olds' memory for surface feature and location information was tested following brief occlusions. When the target objects were images of female faces or monochromatic asterisks infants showed increased looking times following a change in identity or color but not following a change in location or combinations of feature and location information. When the target objects were images of manipulable toys, the infants showed increased looking times following a change in location but not identity or the binding of location and identity information. This evidence is consistent with the idea that young infants are unable to maintain the information processed separately in both the dorsal and ventral visual streams during occlusions. Our results suggest that it is the target's affordance for action that determines whether the dorsal or ventral information is selectively maintained during occlusion.     

Basic-level category discriminations by 7- and 9-month-olds in an object examination task

This study examines 7- and 9-month-olds' ability to categorize cats as separate from dogs, and dogs as separate from cats in an object examination task. In Experiment 1, 7- and 9-month-olds (N = 30) familiarized with toy cat replicas were found to form a category of cat that included novel cats but excluded a dog and an eagle. In Experiment 2, 7- and 9-month-olds (N = 30) familiarized with toy dog replicas were found to form a category of dog that included a novel dogs and a novel cat but excluded an eagle. These results mirror those of 3- to 4-month-olds tested with visual preference methods and stand in contrast to previously reported object examination results. Analyses of the distribution of features in the exemplars used to familiarize infants suggest that, like the 3- to 4-month-olds, the 7- and 9-month-olds in these studies form categories within the task, and on the basis of feature distributions.     

Life-narrative and word-cued autobiographical memories in centenarians: comparisons with 80-year-old control,depressed, and dementia groups

Centenarians provided autobiographical memories to either a request for a life narrative or a request to produce autobiographical memories to cue words. Both methods produced distributions with childhood-amnesia, reminiscence-bump, and recency components. The life-narrative method produced relatively more bump memories at the expense of recent memories. The life-narrative distributions were similar to those obtained from 80-year-old adults without clinical symptoms and from 80-year-old Alzheimer's dementia and depression patients, except that the centenarians had an additional 20-year period of relatively low recall between the bump and recency components. The centenarians produced more emotionally neutral memories than the other three groups and produced fewer and less detailed memories than the non-clinical 80-year-old sample.     

Constructing a short form of the Smoking Consequences Questionnaire with adolescents and young adults

The goal of the present studies was to construct and validate a short form of the 50-item Smoking Consequences Questionnaire (SCQ; T.H. Brandon & T. B. Baker, 1991), a measure of smoking outcome expectancies. In Study 1, a 21-item short form (S-SCQ) was derived from a sample of 107 young adults previously treated for substance abuse. In Study 2, the measure was cross-validated on 125 adolescents in treatment for substance abuse. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed good model fit and factorial invariance for the 4 S-SCQ subscales across both samples. Validation analyses on each sample found that subscale scores generally correlated significantly with smoking-related variables. The present studies provide initial evidence for the utility of the S-SCQ when used with young adults and adolescents.     

r equivalent: A simple effect size indicator

The purpose of this article is to propose a simple effect size estimate (obtained from the sample size, N, and a p value) that can be used (a) in meta-analytic research where only sample sizes and p values have been reported by the original investigator, (b) where no generally accepted effect size estimate exists, or (c) where directly computed effect size estimates are likely to be misleading. This effect size estimate is called r(equivalent) because it equals the sample point-biserial correlation between the treatment indicator and an exactly normally distributed outcome in a two-treatment experiment with N/2 units in each group and the obtained p value. As part of placing r(equivalent) into a broader context, the authors also address limitations of r(equivalent).     

Guest Reviewers for 2000

Authors Index

Guest Reviewers for 2000     

What the Liar Taught Achilles

Zeno's paradoxes of motion and the semantic paradoxes of the Liar have long been thought to have metaphorical affinities. There are, in fact, isomorphisms between variations of Zeno's paradoxes and variations of the Liar paradox in infinite-valued logic. Representing these paradoxes in dynamical systems theory reveals fractal images and provides other geometric ways of visualizing and conceptualizing the paradoxes.     

A computational and neuropsychological account of object-oriented behaviours in infancy

Infants under 7 months of age fail to reach behind an occluding screen to retrieve a desired toy even though they possess sufficient motor skills to do so. However, even by 3.5 months of age they show surprise if the solidity of the hidden toy is violated, suggesting that they know that the hidden toy still exists. We describe a connectionist model that learns to predict the position of objects and to initiate a response towards these objects. The model embodies the dual-route principle of object information processing characteristic of the cortex. One route develops a spatially invariant surface feature representation of the object whereas the other route develops a feature blind spatial–temporal representation of the object. The model provides an account of the developmental lag between infants’ knowledge of hidden objects and their ability to demonstrate that knowledge in an active retrieval task, in terms of the need to integrate information across multiple object representations using (associative) connectionist learning algorithms. Finally, the model predicts the presence of an early dissociation between infants’ ability to use surface features (e.g. colour) and spatial–temporal features (e.g. position) when reasoning about hidden objects. Evidence supporting this prediction has now been reported.