Attention on our mind: The role of spatial attention in visual working memory

The current study shows that spatial visual attention is used to retrieve information from visual working memory. Participants had to keep four colored circles in visual working memory. While keeping this information in memory we asked whether one of the colors was present in the array. While retrieving this information, on some trials a probe dot was presented. When this probe dot was presented at the location of the color that had to be retrieved, participants responded faster than when it was presented at another location. Our findings further elaborate the role of visual attention in working memory: not only is attention the mechanism by which information is stored into working memory, it is also the mechanism by which information is retrieved from visual working memory.     

Driving impairs talking

It is well known that conversation (e.g, on a cell phone) impairs driving. We demonstrate that the reverse is also true: Language production and comprehension, and the encoding of the products of comprehension into memory, are less accurate when one is driving. Ninety-six pairs of drivers and conversation partners engaged in a story-retelling task in a driving simulator. Half of the pairs were older adults. Each pair completed one dual-task block (driving during the retelling task) and two single-task control blocks. The results showed a decline in the accuracy of the drivers’ storytelling and of their memory for stories that were told to them by their nondriving partners. Speech production suffered an additional cost when the difficulty of driving increased. Measures of driving performance suggested that the drivers gave priority to the driving task when they were conversing. As a result, their linguistic performance suffered.     

Forgotten but not gone: context effects on recognition do not require explicit memory for context

Context effects on recognition memory provide an important indirect assay of associative learning and source memory. Neuropsychological studies have indicated that such context effects may obtain even if the contexts themselves are not remembered--for example, in individuals impaired on direct tests of memory for contextual information. In contrast, a recent study indicated that the effects of temporal context reinstatement on visual recognition obtain only when the contextual information itself was explicitly recollected. Here we report that the effects of reinstatement of spatial-simultaneous context on visual object recognition memory obtain irrespective of whether those context stimuli are explicitly recognized. We suggest that spatial-simultaneous context effects might be based on ensemble unitization of target and context stimuli at encoding, whereas temporal context effects may require recollective processes.     

Training older adults to search more effectively: scanning strategy and visual search in dynamic displays

The authors examined the ability of older adults to modify their search strategies to detect changes in dynamic displays. Older adults who made few eye movements during search (i.e., covert searchers) were faster and more accurate compared with individuals who made many eye movements (i.e., overt searchers). When overt searchers were instructed to adopt a covert search strategy, target detection performance increased to the level of natural covert searchers. Similarly, covert searchers instructed to search overtly exhibited a decrease in target detection performance. These data suggest that with instructions and minimal practice, older adults can ameliorate the cost of a poor search strategy.     

The Interface between Mental Health Providers, Families, and Schools: Parent and Child Attitudes about Information-Sharing

Youth with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) are at an increased risk for school problems and negative consequences into adulthood, increasing the need for collaboration between families, school personnel and mental health providers. Current treatment guidelines emphasize the importance of information-sharing between providers and schools, yet few studies have addressed parents’ or students’ attitudes and preferences about this process or about the disclosure of mental health-related information to school professionals. Using a sample of 73 pairs of parents and their adolescents seeking outpatient treatment, this study assessed parental and adolescent attitudes about disclosure of mental health treatment information to school personnel. The majority of parents reported that the school should be informed that their adolescent was receiving counseling or medication for EBD, and that they should be the primary informant, rather than providers. By comparison, adolescents preferred more discretion about their involvement in treatment. Taken together, the study results highlight a number of implications relevant to the therapeutic relation and the process of obtaining and sharing mental health-related treatment information with various school personnel. Future research directions regarding the consultative and collaborative process with school personnel are also discussed.     

Chinese child-rearing beliefs: Key dimensions and contributions to the development of culture-appropriate assessment

Socio-cultural perspectives explain inconsistency in Chinese child-rearing research when imported methods and concepts are applied. We sought to elucidate child-rearing belief constructs relevant to Chinese contexts. Exploratory factor analysis identified items representing child-rearing concepts both imported and indigenous to Chinese culture and forming four dimensions: Training, Shame, Authoritative, and Autonomy. Data from parents of preschool-aged children in Hong Kong ( N  = 228) and Taiwan ( N  = 213) were subject to confirmatory factor and scale internal consistency analyses. Results support the conceptual and psychometric coherence of each subscale. Discussion of findings focuses on the benefits of culturally responsive methodology and the potential utility of the scales in child-rearing research with Chinese and other Confucian cultural populations.     

Metacognition during unfamiliar face matching

Kruger and Dunning (1999) described a metacognitive bias in which insight into performance is linked to competence: poorer performers are less aware of their mistakes than better performers. Competence-based insight has been argued to apply generally across task domains, including a recent report investigating social cognition using a variety of face-matching tasks. Problematically, serious statistical and methodological criticisms have been directed against the traditional method of analysis used by researchers in this field. Here, we further illustrate these issues and investigate new sources of insight within unfamiliar face matching. Over two experiments (total N = 1077), where Experiment 2 was a preregistered replication of the key findings from Experiment 1, we found that insight into performance was multi-faceted. Participants demonstrated insight which was not based on competence, in the form of accurate updating of estimated performance. We also found evidence of insight which was based on competence: the difference in confidence on correct versus incorrect trials increased with competence. By providing ways that we can move beyond problematic, traditional approaches, we have begun to reveal a more realistic story regarding the nature of insight into face perception.     

Retrospective ratings of ADHD symptoms made at young adulthood by clinic-referred boys with ADHD-related problems, their brothers without ADHD, and control participants

Retrospective childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms are required to diagnosis adult ADHD, but the validity of self-rated symptoms across time is questionable. Here, boys with ADHD-related problems, their brothers without ADHD, and former schoolmates rated themselves during young adulthood for ages 9, 14, and 19. Brothers rated probands retrospectively at the same ages. The young adults referred as children for ADHD (a) acknowledged childhood symptoms; (b) described improvement over time; (c) did not differ from brothers or controls on most self-ratings of young adult symptoms; (d) rated themselves as more symptomatic at age 9, but less symptomatic at age 19, than their brothers rated them; and (e) agreed only to some degree with brothers' ratings of probands' aggression (median correlation = .22). Probands' ratings showed limited agreement with judges' symptom ratings (median correlation = .16) and young adult follow-up examiners' ratings (median correlation = .14). These findings are not accounted for solely by changes in informants, nor by the course of ADHD psychopathology. They suggest some stability but limited internal consistency and validity for retrospective ADHD ratings by probands and brothers.