A Group of Black South Africans' Experience of Telling their Untold Stories about the Apartheid Era

The aim of this research was to explore a group of black South Africans' experiences of telling their untold stories of survival about the apartheid era. The expectation was that if they did become more aware of these alternative stories, it could have a far-reaching effect on their lives. A qualitative study was conducted with a group of seven black South African survivors of the apartheid era, ranging in age from 42–62 years (males =5, females =2). These participants formed part of an earlier study investigating their perceptions regarding factors that helped them to survive the apartheid era. For the present study, unstructured interviews were conducted focusing on their subjective experiences after the initial study. Analysis of the data yielded seven prevalent themes, namely a positive experience that made a difference, gaining of a positive attitude, not all white people are bad, transgressing the past and moving on, awareness of personal strengths, forgiveness and starting to talk to family and friends. The participants became aware of their untold stories of survival and experienced a positive change within themselves, towards others, the past and the future.     

Appraisal of Emotions in Media Use: Toward a Process Model of Meta-Emotion and Emotion Regulation

Over the past 20 years, research on meta-emotion and related concepts such as meta-mood and need for affect has become fruitful and prominent across a variety of disciplines, including media psychology. This paper reviews the literature on meta-emotion and considers problems regarding the definition and operationalization of this construct. We propose a process model of meta-emotion and emotion regulation to integrate and extend existing work. Drawing on appraisal theories of emotion, we understand meta-emotion as a process that monitors and appraises emotions and recruits affective responses toward them, which results in a motivation to maintain and approach emotions, or to control and avoid them. This meta-emotion process plays an important role in media users' selection or rejection of specific media offerings and their invitation to experience emotion. We discuss how this framework may integrate previously unrelated findings on the role of emotions in guiding selective media use and conclude with directions for further research.     

Reasons for the growth of traditional memory span across age

Three studies, covering together the age range from 3 to 16 years, show the relationships between age, short-term memory span, and language abilities. The growth of the traditional memory span in childhood is systematically related to a concomitant growth of language abilities as tested with CELF-3 Screening, two tests of word knowledge, a test of reception of grammar (TROG-2), and the British Picture Vocabulary Test (BPVS). Linear regression and ANCOVA analyses show that the growth of memory span is fully explained by the growth of language abilities in the three studies that covered different subsamples of children. In a confirmatory factor analysis a two-factor model fits the data well and shows that a “crystallised” language factor is strongly related to age, whereas a “fluid” short-term memory factor is unrelated to age. The two-factor model gives support to Baddeley's multicomponent model of working memory, and the current data suggest that the capacity of the phonological store is fully developed in children younger than 4 years old. The authors hold that chunking capacity, highly dependent on language abilities, is a major source of memory span growth with age. Rather than an increase in the number of chunks, or episodes retained in short-term memory (=chunk span), it is argued that childhood memory span development reflects an increase in the size of each chunk (=chunking capacity).     

Gorbatschews “Erneuerung des Sozialismus” — Ideologie in der Krise des Kommunismus

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

On the form of stimulus generalization curves for visual intensity

Twelve pigeons were given successive discrimination training involving variable-interval reinforcement for key pecking in the presence of one intensity of monochromatic light randomly alternated with extinction for pecking during another intensity. All of the pigeons were then tested in extinction for generalization along the intensity dimension, and all showed a displacement of maximal responding from the positive stimulus in the direction opposite the negative stimulus. For six of the pigeons, for which the test included only three values beyond the positive stimulus, four showed peaked gradients but two did not, showing monotonic gradients with maximal responding to the most extreme test value. For another six pigeons tested over a wider range, all showed peaked gradients. Thus, when a sufficiently wide range of test values is employed, generalization gradients for visual intensity have the same peaked form as do gradients for qualitative visual dimensions such as wavelength or line angle.