The child in time: The influence of parent–child discussion about a future experience on how it is remembered

We investigated the influence of preparation provided by parents on preschoolers’ recall. One day before children participated in a staged novel event, parents discussed the event with their child either with (verbal+photos) or without (verbal) photographs. Parents and children in a control condition read an unrelated story. Then 8–10 days later the children were interviewed about the event. Children in the verbal+photos condition recalled significantly more than those in the control condition. Parental preparation style (e.g., evaluations, hypothetical language) was associated with the child's contributions to the preparatory discussion, but no aspect of parent or child style or content was associated with children's verbal recall. Similarly, there were no significant associations between children's performance on a task of episodic future thinking, and their preparatory discussion or recall, although episodic future thinking was strongly associated with language ability. The potential underlying mechanisms and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Effects of instruction on learners’ ability to generate an effective pathway in the method of loci

One of the most effective mnemonic techniques is the well-known method of loci. Learning and retention, especially of sequentially ordered information, is facilitated by this technique which involves mentally combining salient loci on a well-known path with the material to be learned. There are several variants of this technique that differ in the kind of path that is suggested to the user and it is implicitly assumed that these variants are comparable in effectiveness. The experiments reported in this study were designed to test this assumption. The data of two experiments show that participants who are instructed to generate and apply loci on a route to their work recall significantly more items in a memory test than participants who are instructed to generate and apply loci on a route in their house. These results have practical implications for the instruction and application of the method of loci.     

Retrieval experience in prospective memory: Strategic monitoring and spontaneous retrieval

According to the multi-process model of prospective memory (McDaniel & Einstein, 2000 McDaniel, M. A. and Einstein, G. O. 2000. Strategic and automatic processes in prospective memory retrieval: A multiprocess framework. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14: S127–S144. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), performance in a prospective memory task may be due to spontaneous retrieval processes or due to strategic monitoring. Spontaneous retrieval is typically accompanied by a pop up experience and strategic monitoring by a search experience. In this study we report two experiments with young adults in which we systematically investigated whether retrieval experience differed across experimental conditions. In Experiment 1 some prospective memory targets were preceded by associated primes. We expected that presenting primes would enhance performance by an automatic activation of the intention and hence lead to an increase in pop up experiences. In Experiment 2 half of the participants received instructions containing information about the specific context in which the prospective memory task would occur, whereas the other half of the participants received no such information. We expected that specific context instructions would enhance performance by legitimate anticipation of the prospective memory task and hence would lead to an increase in search experiences. The results confirmed these expectations. They indicate that the assessment of retrieval experience can provide valuable insights into the processes underlying prospective memory performance. They also suggest that retrieval experience can vary systematically across experimental situations as predicted by the multi-process model.     

Prospective memory: The relative effects of encoding,retrieval, and the match between encoding and retrieval

Previous prospective memory studies have revealed some important features of encoding, retrieval, and the match between the encoding and the retrieval that contribute to prospective memory performance. However, these studies have not provided evidence concerning the relative importance of these three factors because no study has investigated all three in a single design. We developed a laboratory-based paradigm that allowed us to manipulate different characteristics of encoding, retrieval, and the match between encoding and retrieval simultaneously in a single experiment. The results of eight experiments showed that all three factors have an influence on prospective memory performance, but that the match between encoding and retrieval has a significantly larger influence than either encoding or retrieval factors.     

Against One Form of Judgment-Determinism

Taking 'rationalized judgments' to be those formed by inference from other judgments, I argue against 'Extreme Determinism': the thesis that theoretical rationalization just is a kind of predetermination of 'conclusion-judgments' by 'premise-judgments'. The argument rests upon two key lemmas: firstly, that a deliberator - in this case, his/her assent to some proposition - to be predetermined (I call this the 'Openness Requirement'): secondly, that a subject's logical insight into his/her premise-judgments must enter into the explanation of any judgment s/he forms that is rationalized by those judgments. My contention is that, given the Openness Requirement, no version of Extreme Determinsim can allow for the role played by logical insight in the rationalization of judgment. I end by indicating briefly how this result might figure in a wider argument against any form of determinism about rationalized judgment, and by explaining why I have focused specifically upon rebutting a deterministic view of theoretical as opposed to 'practical' rationalization.     

Team Mental Models,Team Goal Orientations,and Information Elaboration,Predicting Team Creative Performance

This study aimed to enhance understanding of team creativity by investigating the type of team mental models that team members develop during their work on a creative problem solving task. We hypothesized that teams that develop dissimilar team mental models, compared to similar and complementary team mental models, will achieve a higher information elaboration. This effect will be moderated by the development of a high learning-performance team goal orientation. Information elaboration in turn was hypothesized to predict team creative performance. In a 3 (similar/dissimilar/complementary team mental models) × 3 (learning/performance/learning-performance goal orientation) experimental study on a sample of 33 teams (N = 98) we found that teams that developed more dissimilar team mental models and experienced a learning-performance goal orientation intervention engaged in more information elaboration. Information elaboration, in turn, mediated the relationship between the interaction between team mental models and team goal orientations and team creative performance. Implications for research on team mental models and team creativity are discussed.     

Musical Probabilities,Abductive Reasoning,and Brain Mechanisms: Extended Perspective of A Priori Listening to Music Within the Creative Cognition Approach

A theory of listening to music is proposed. It suggests that, for listeners, the process of prediction is the starting point to experiencing music. This implies that perception of music starts through both a predisposed and an experience-based extrapolation into the future (this is labeled a priori listening). Indications for this proposal are discussed and defined using perspectives from the cognitive sciences, neuroscience, philosophy, and experimental psychology. Of most importance in this theory is that listening to music constantly interacts with the creative processes.     

Solving and Creating Raven Progressive Matrices: Reasoning in Well- and Ill-Defined Problem Spaces

We studied the development of creative cognition in children ranging from nursery school to Grade 6 (4–12 yr old, N = 511), performing a problem generation task. The task involved inventing a novel item for a classical problem solving task they had completed beforehand: the Raven Progressive Matrices (RPM). This task and the generating task both comprise matrixes of components, to which a set of transformational relations are applied; only in the first case these are inferred to solve a puzzle, but in the second they are invented to create one. We analyzed the matrixes invented in the generation task and compared them to those of the original solving task. We observed that (a) both in solving and generation, the ability to combine more than 1 relation increased with grade level, (b) within all 8 grades, except Grades 3 and 6, performance was uncorrelated between both tasks, (c) relations that were applied in the generation task often did feature in the solving task, and (d) relations occurring in both tasks were applied with different frequencies. Overall, we conclude that standard problem solving ability is not a precondition for creative reasoning and that the comprehension of relations between components featured in solving task differs from that applied in generation.     

Control of a Virtual Avatar Influences Postural Activity and Motion Sickness

The influence of vehicular control on motion sickness has implications for theories of motion sickness etiology. We asked whether motion sickness susceptibility might also be related to the control of non-vehicular locomotion. Participants were exposed to a console video game that featured ambulatory locomotion of a virtual avatar. In a yoked control design, individuals either played the game (players) or watched another participant's recorded game play (viewers). Viewers were more likely than players to report motion sickness. During exposure to the video game players moved more than viewers, and the movement of players was more predictable or self-similar than the movement of viewers. Coupling of movement within player-viewer pairs was greater for pairs in which the viewer later reported motion sickness than for pairs in which both participants stated that they were not motion sick. The results reveal that motion sickness incidence can be influenced by the control of stimulus motion, in general, and is not limited to control of vehicular motion. We discuss implications of these findings for theories of motion sickness etiology.