Skulking around the dinosaur: Eliciting cues to children's deception via strategic disclosure of evidence

Research has shown that cues to deception are more salient as an effect of strategic use of evidence (SUE) during interviews. This study examined the feasibility of the SUE‐technique for eliciting cues to children's deception. Experiment 1 investigated verbal cues to deception as a function of early vs. late disclosure of evidence. Eighty‐four children (12–14 years) either guilty or innocent of a mock crime were interviewed. As predicted, deceptive statements were significantly more inconsistent with the evidence than truthful statements, and this was more pronounced as a function of late compared to early disclosure of evidence. In Experiment 2, adult observers (N = 168) made veracity assessments of the videotaped statements. Observers in the late disclosure condition achieved an accuracy rate higher than chance (63.1%), whereas accuracy rates in the early disclosure condition were at chance level (56%). Accuracy rates were significantly higher for truthful (70.2%), than deceptive statements (48.8%). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Liberty to Decide on Dual Use Biomedical Research: An Acknowledged Necessity

Humanity entered the twenty-first century with revolutionary achievements in biomedical research. At the same time multiple “dual-use” results have been published. The battle against infectious diseases is meeting new challenges, with newly emerging and re-emerging infections. Both natural disaster epidemics, such as SARS, avian influenza, haemorrhagic fevers, XDR and MDR tuberculosis and many others, and the possibility of intentional mis-use, such as letters containing anthrax spores in USA, 2001, have raised awareness of the real threats. Many great men, including Goethe, Spinoza, J.B. Shaw, Fr. Engels, J.F. Kennedy and others, have recognized that liberty is also a responsibility. That is why the liberty to decide now represents an acknowledged necessity: biomedical research should be supported, conducted and published with appropriate measures to prevent potential “dual use”. Biomedical scientists should work according to the ethical principles of their Code of Conduct, an analogue of Hippocrates Oath of doctors; and they should inform government, society and their juniors about the problem. National science consulting boards of experts should be created to prepare guidelines and control the problem at state level. An international board should develop minimum standards to be applicable by each country. Bio-preparedness is considered another key-measure.     

The effects of social influence on children's memory reports: the omission and commission error asymmetry

Children in two age groups (7 vs. 12 yrs, N= 174) individually interacted with a stranger and were later interviewed about this event. Right before the interview, each child encountered the stranger once again and he engaged in a conversation where he either suggested that a (central or peripheral) detail originally present in the event had actually not been there or that an originally non-present (central or peripheral) detail had in fact been there. It was hypothesized that the two types of misinformation would result in omission and commission errors respectively. The results showed that the social influence resulted in an asymmetric effect (i.e., more commission than omission errors). Importantly, we also found that the children made more errors with respect to the peripheral detail (a suitcase), compared to the central detail (a passenger). Younger children did not make more errors (neither omission nor commission errors) than older children.     

Hebb learning, verbal short-term memory, and the acquisition of phonological forms in children

Recent work using the Hebb effect as a marker for implicit long-term acquisition of serial order has demonstrated a functional equivalence across verbal and visuospatial short-term memory. The current study extends this observation to a sample of five- to six-year-olds using verbal and spatial immediate serial recall and also correlates the magnitude of Hebb learning with explicit measures of word and nonword paired-associate learning. Comparable Hebb effects were observed in both domains, but only nonword learning was significantly related to the magnitude of Hebb learning. Nonword learning was also independently related to individuals' general level of verbal serial recall. This suggests that vocabulary acquisition depends on both a domain-specific short-term memory system and a domain-general process of learning through repetition.     

Neural and genetic foundations of face recognition and prosopagnosia

Faces are of essential importance for human social life. They provide valuable information about the identity, expression, gaze, health, and age of a person. Recent face‐processing models assume highly interconnected neural structures between different temporal, occipital, and frontal brain areas with several feedback loops. A selective deficit in the visual learning and recognition of faces is known as prosopagnosia, which can be found both in acquired and congenital form. Recently, a hereditary sub‐type of congenital prosopagnosia with a very high prevalence rate of 2.5% has been identified. Recent research results show that hereditary prosopagnosia is a clearly circumscribed face‐processing deficit with a characteristic set of clinical symptoms. Comparing face processing of people of prosopagnosia with that of controls can help to develop a more conclusive and integrated model of face processing. Here, we provide a summary of the current state of face processing research. We also describe the different types of prosopagnosia and present the set of typical symptoms found in the hereditary type. Finally, we will discuss the implications for future face recognition research.     

Familiarity breeds distortion: the effects of media exposure on false reports concerning media coverage of the terrorist attacks in london on 7 July 2005

The present experiment investigated whether increased media exposure could lead to an increase in memory distortions regarding a traumatic public event: the explosion of the No. 30 bus in Tavistock Square, London on 7 July 2005. A total of 150 Swedish and 150 UK participants completed a series of questionnaires about their memory of either (i) the aftermath of the explosion, (ii) a non-existent computerised reconstruction of the moment of the explosion, or (iii) non-existent closed circuit television footage of the moment of the explosion. In line with the availability heuristic, U.K. participants were more likely than Swedish participants to claim to have seen all three types of footage. Furthermore, a subsample of U.K. participants who appeared to have developed false "memories" of seeing the No. 30 bus explode scored significantly higher on measures of dissociation and fantasy proneness than participants who did not develop false "memories". This experiment provides further support for the role of imaginative processes in the development of false memories.     

Methylphenidate amplifies long-term plasticity in the hippocampus via noradrenergic mechanisms

Methylphenidate treatment is used for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and can improve learning and memory. Previously, improvements were considered a by-product of increased attention; however, we hypothesize that methylphenidate directly alters mechanisms underlying learning and memory, and therefore examined its effects on hippocampal long-term potentiation and long-term depression. Methylphenidate enhanced both mechanisms in the absence of presynaptic changes and in a noradrenalin beta-receptor-dependent manner. These findings can explain both the improved learning and memory and decreased learning selectivity found with methylphenidate treatment and constitute the first demonstration of direct actions of methylphenidate on mechanisms implicated in cognition.     

Gene Concepts and Genethics: Beyond Exceptionalism

The discursive explosion that was provoked by the new genetics could support the impression that the ethical and social problems posed by the new genetics are somehow exceptional in their very nature. According to this view we are faced with special ethical and social problems that create a challenge so fundamental that the special label of genethics is needless to justify. The historical account regarding the evolution of the gene concepts could serve us to highlight the limits of what we know about genes and what we can do with genes. The widespread notion about the exceptionality of genetic knowledge and its applicative possibilities is hardly justifiable and leads to misunderstandings regarding the conceptualization of the ethical and social problems we might face. Following a more realistic interpretation of the role of genes in human life we might avoid a whole set of fictive dilemmas and counterproductive regulatory efforts in bioethics. Bioethical discourse should move from the gene-centered scientific discourse toward the more sophisticated and complex discourses where human development represented as a matter of complex interactions between genomes and environments, between genes, educational factors, nutritional regimes, and other different developmental resources. If a gene is seen as one among the different developmental resources that are shaping a given human trait then both genethics and genetic exceptionalism could hardly be represented as a justified approach in discussing the ethical and social problems of genetics.     

Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness

The need for social connection is a fundamental human motive, and it is increasingly clear that feeling socially connected confers mental and physical health benefits. However, in many cultures, societal changes are leading to growing social distrust and alienation. Can feelings of social connection and positivity toward others be increased? Is it possible to self-generate these feelings? In this study, the authors used a brief loving-kindness meditation exercise to examine whether social connection could be created toward strangers in a controlled laboratory context. Compared with a closely matched control task, even just a few minutes of loving-kindness meditation increased feelings of social connection and positivity toward novel individuals on both explicit and implicit levels. These results suggest that this easily implemented technique may help to increase positive social emotions and decrease social isolation.