SenseCam: a wearable camera that stimulates and rehabilitates autobiographical memory

SenseCam is a wearable digital camera that captures an electronic record of the wearer's day. It does this by automatically recording a series of still images through its wide-angle lens, and simultaneously capturing a log of data from a number of built-in electronic sensors. Subsequently reviewing a sequence of images appears to provide a powerful autobiographical memory cue. A preliminary evaluation of SenseCam with a patient diagnosed with severe memory impairment was extremely positive; periodic review of images of events recorded by SenseCam resulted in significant recall of those events. Following this, a great deal of work has been undertaken to explore this phenomenon and there are early indications that SenseCam technology may be beneficial to a variety of patients with physical and mental health problems, and is valuable as a tool for investigating normal memory through behavioural and neuroimaging means. Elsewhere, it is becoming clear that judicious use of SenseCam could significantly impact the study of human behaviour. Meanwhile, research and development of the technology itself continues with the aim of providing robust hardware and software tools to meet the needs of clinicians, patients, carers, and researchers. In this paper we describe the history of SenseCam, and the design and operation of the SenseCam device and the associated viewing software, and we discuss some of the ongoing research questions being addressed with the help of SenseCam.     

SenseCam improves memory for recent events and quality of life in a patient with memory retrieval difficulties

A wearable camera that takes pictures automatically, SenseCam, was used to generate images for rehearsal, promoting consolidation and retrieval of memories for significant events in a patient with memory retrieval deficits. SenseCam images of recent events were systematically reviewed over a 2-week period. Memory for these events was assessed throughout and longer-term recall was tested up to 6 months later. A written diary control condition followed the same procedure. The SenseCam review procedure resulted in significantly more details of an event being recalled, with twice as many details recalled at 6 months follow up compared to the written diary method. Self-report measures suggested autobiographical recollection was triggered by the SenseCam condition but not by reviewing the written diary. Emotional and social wellbeing questionnaires indicated improved confidence and decreased anxiety as a result of memory rehearsal using SenseCam images. We propose that SenseCam images provide a powerful boost to autobiographical recall, with secondary benefits for quality of life.     

The interrelation between cognitive and motor development in typically developing children aged 4-11 years is underpinned by visual processing and fine manual control

We charted the interrelation between cognitive and motor skills in typically developing children aged 4-11 years across broad ability measures from standardized tests and investigated the nature of this relationship by examining effects of age and sex. Results indicated a significant, moderate correlation between gross cognitive and motor scores across all participants. Correlations between indices of the standardized measures and a principal component analysis revealed that visual processing (VP) and fine manual control (FMC) largely accounted for the interrelation between the overall domains. Age and sex affected the strength of gross correlation: 7-year-olds showed a weaker correlation than all other ages and females exhibited a significantly stronger correlation than males. However, the correlation between VP and FMC was constant across all age and sex groups, except 4-year-old males. These findings advance evidence that from an early age, cognitive and motor development is linked by elucidating the underlying nature of this relationship. These results have important implications for clinical, educational, and experimental practice.     

Effects of organizational citizenship behaviors on selection decisions in employment interviews

This article reports on an experiment examining the effects of job candidates' propensity to exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) on selection decisions made in the context of a job interview. We developed videos that manipulated candidate responses to interview questions tapping task performance and citizenship behavior content in 2 administrative positions. Results obtained from 480 undergraduates provided support for our hypotheses that job candidates who exhibited higher levels of helping, voice, and loyalty behaviors were generally rated as more competent, received higher overall evaluations, and received higher salary recommendations than job candidates who exhibited lower levels of these behaviors. These effects held even after taking into account candidate responses regarding task performance. We also found that candidate responses to OCB-related questions tended to have a greater effect on selection decisions for the higher level position (supervisor of administrative personnel) than for the lower level one (administrative assistant). Finally, content analyses of open-ended responses indicated that participants' selection decisions were particularly sensitive to candidates who exhibited low levels of voice and helping behaviors. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Narcissism and the self-evaluation maintenance model: effects of social comparison threats on relationship closeness

When threatened with an upward social comparison with a close other in a self-relevant domain, people may reduce either the self-relevance of the ability being compared or their perceived closeness to the other person (Tesser, 1988). Those high in the trait of narcissism may be more likely to push away others who outperform them. Participants and nominated close others completed online measures of narcissism, contingent self-worth, and relationship closeness. Subsequently, participants heard that their friend performed better (or equivalently) on a "competitive spirit" test. Participants higher in narcissism significantly reduced the closeness of their relationships after a threat but did not reduce the relevance of competitiveness to their self-worth.     

Inferential reasoning by exclusion in great apes, lesser apes, and spider monkeys

Using the cups task, in which subjects are presented with limited visual or auditory information that can be used to deduce the location of a hidden reward, Call (2004) found prima facie evidence of inferential reasoning by exclusion in several great ape species. One bonobo (Pan paniscus) and two gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) appeared to make such inferences in both the visual and auditory domains. However, common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) were successful only in the visual domain, and Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) in neither. The present research built on this paradigm, and Experiment 1 yielded prima facie evidence of inference by exclusion in both domains for two common chimpanzees, and in the visual domain for two Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii). Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that two specific associative learning explanations could not readily account for these results. Because an important focus of the program of research was to assess the cognitive capacities of lesser apes (family Hylobatidae), we modified Call's original procedures to better suit their attentional and dispositional characteristics. In Experiment 1, testing was also attempted with three gibbon genera (Symphalangus, Nomascus, Hylobates), but none of the subjects completed the standard task. Further testing of three siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus) and a spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) using a faster method yielded prima facie evidence of inferential reasoning by exclusion in the visual domain among the siamangs (Experiment 4).     

Concerns about Appearing Prejudiced Get Under the Skin: Stress Responses to Interracial Contact in the Moment and across Time

Many White Americans are concerned about appearing prejudiced. How these concerns affect responses during actual interracial interactions, however, remains understudied. The present work examines stress responses to interracial contact-both in the moment, during interracial interactions (Study 1), and over time as individuals have repeated interracial contact (Study 2). Results of Study 1 revealed that concerns about appearing prejudiced were associated with heightened stress responses during interracial encounters (Study 1). White participants concerned about appearing prejudiced exhibited significant increases in cortisol "stress hormone" levels as well as increases in anxious behavior during interracial but not same-race contact. Participants relatively unconcerned about appearing prejudiced did not exhibit these stress responses. Study 2 examined stress responses to interracial contact over an entire academic year. Results revealed that White participants exhibited shifts in cortisol diurnal rhythms on days after interracial contact. Moreover, participants' cortisol rhythms across the academic year, from fall to spring, were related to their concerns about appearing prejudiced and their interracial contact experiences. Taken together, these data offer the first evidence that chronic concerns about appearing prejudiced are related to short- and longer-term stress responses to interracial contact. Implications for life in diverse spaces are discussed.     

Effects of message, source, and context on evaluations of employee voice behavior

The article contained a production-related error. In Table 5, the four values in the rows for Study 1 Prosocial motives and Study 1 Constructive voice should have been shifted one column to the right, to the Direct and Total Performance evaluations columns. All versions of this article have been corrected.] Although employee voice behavior is expected to have important organizational benefits, research indicates that employees voicing their recommendations for organizational change may be evaluated either positively or negatively by observers. A review of the literature suggests that the perceived efficacy of voice behaviors may be a function of characteristics associated with the (a) source, (b) message, and (c) context of the voice event. In this study, we manipulated variables from each of these categories based on a model designed to predict when voice will positively or negatively impact raters' evaluations of an employee's performance. To test our model, we conducted 3 laboratory studies in which we manipulated 2 source factors (voicer expertise and trustworthiness), 2 message factors (recommending a solution and positively vs. negatively framing the message), and 2 context factors (timing of the voice event and organizational norms for speaking up vs. keeping quiet). We also examined the mediating effects of liking, prosocial motives, and perceptions that the voice behavior was constructive on the relationships between the source, message, and context factors and performance evaluations. Generally speaking, we found that at least one of the variables from each category had an effect on performance evaluations for the voicer and that most of these effects were indirect, operating through one or more of the mediators. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.     

An Issue of Blood: The Healing of the Woman with the Haemorrhage (Mark 5.24B–34; Luke 8.42B–48; Matthew 9.19–22) in Early Medieval Visual Culture

The textual and visual tradition of the story of the woman with the haemorrhage (Mark 5.24b-34parr), the so-called Haemorrhoissa, is related in a specific way to Christ's healing miracles but also to conceptions of female menstrual blood. We notice that with regard to the specific 'issue of blood' of the Haemorrhoissa, there is a visual lacuna in the specific iconography that developed around the story from early Christian times: in the transposition from text to image, there is no immediate depiction of her bleeding. However, the early medieval reception of the story also became an important catalyst for uterine taboos, menstruation and tits relation to magical healing, understood as a system of health practices. In this context, the dissemination of the motif in everyday material culture clearly points to a deep-rooted connection to uterine and menstrual issues. The paper considers both expressions and their-anthropologically framed-relation to this female 'issue of blood', which the Haemorrhoissa came to embody and epitomise literally, as well as figuratively.     

Indirect object recognition: evidence for associative processes in recognition memory

Rats' exploration of stimulus P (e.g., a domestic object) is reduced following either its direct exposure or its indirect exposure and is taken to indicate recognition memory. Procedures for demonstrating indirect object recognition involve an initial presentation of object P with stimulus X (and of an object Q with stimulus Y). On test, stimulus X is presented with objects P and Q and rats' exploration of Q exceeds their exploration of P. One interpretation here is that the presentation of stimulus X on test associatively activates the memory of object P, which diminishes exploration of P relative to Q. It is possible, instead, that performance is simply the result of a novel pattern of stimulation generated by the unfamiliar combination of X and Q. The authors modified this procedure to reduce the likelihood of such a process. Their procedure involved first the presentation of PX and QY before the presentation of stimulus X alone. During the test that followed, objects P and Q were presented but stimulus X was removed. The authors found that exploration of Q remained greater than that of P despite these modifications and discuss some theoretical implications of indirect, associative processes in recognition memory.