Time-dependent modulation of inhibitory avoidance memory by spermidine in rats

The polyamines, spermine, spermidine, and putrescine, are a group of aliphatic amines that may act as physiological modulators of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. Although the modulatory role of polyamines in NMDA receptor function has long been known, the effects of polyamines on learning and memory only recently began to be unraveled. In the present study, we investigated the effect of bilateral infusions of spermidine (0.02-2 nmol), a polyamine agonist, into the CA1 region of the rat dorsal hippocampus on inhibitory avoidance learning 30 min pre-training, immediately post-training, 6 h post-training, or 10 min pre-test. Bilateral microinjections of 0.2 nmol spermidine prolonged step-down latencies compared to the respective control group when administered 30 min pre-training or immediately post-training. These results provide evidence that the modulatory effects of spermidine on the acquisition and/or early consolidation of memory of inhibitory avoidance tasks in the hippocampus occur within a limited time window.     

Amending Frege’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Grundgesetze der Arithmetik</Emphasis>

Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik is formally inconsistent. This system is, except for minor differences, second-order logic together with an abstraction operator governed by Frege’s Axiom V. A few years ago, Richard Heck showed that the ramified predicative second-order fragment of the Grundgesetze is consistent. In this paper, we show that the above fragment augmented with the axiom of reducibility for concepts true of only finitely many individuals is still consistent, and that elementary Peano arithmetic (and more) is interpretable in this extended system.     

Early, involuntary top-down guidance of attention from working memory

Four experiments explored the interrelations between working memory, attention, and eye movements. Observers had to identify a tilted line amongst vertical distractors. Each line was surrounded by a colored shape that could be precued by a matching item held in memory. Relative to a neutral baseline, in which no shapes matched the memory item, search was more efficient when the memory cue matched the shape containing the target, and it was less efficient when the cued stimulus contained a distractor. Cuing affected the shortest reaction times and the first saccade in search. The effect occurred even when the memory cue was always invalid but not when the cue did not have to be held in memory. There was also no evidence for priming effects between consecutive trials. The results suggest that there can be early, involuntary top-down directing of attention to a stimulus matching the contents of working memory.     

A multi-analyses approach of inductive/deductive asymmetry in the affective priming paradigm

Rapidly evaluating our environment's beneficial and detrimental features is critical for our successful functioning. A classic paradigm used to investigate such fast and automatic evaluations is the affective priming (AP) paradigm, where participants classify valenced target stimuli (e.g., words) as good or bad while ignoring the valenced primes (e.g., words). We investigate the differential impact that verbs and adjectives used as primes and targets have on the AP paradigm. Based on earlier work on the Linguistic Category Model, we expect AP effect to be modulated by non-evaluative properties of the word stimuli, such as the linguistic category (e.g., if the prime is an adjective and the target is a verb versus the reverse). A reduction in the magnitude of the priming effect was predicted for adjective–verb prime-target pairs compared to verb–adjective prime-target pairs. Moreover, we implemented a modified crowdsourcing of statistical analyses implementing independently three different statistical approaches. Deriving our conclusions on the converging/diverging evidence provided by the different approaches, we show a clear deductive/inductive asymmetry in AP paradigm (exp. 1), that this asymmetry does not require a focus on the evaluative dimension to emerge (exp. 2) and that the semantic-based asymmetry weakly extends to valence (exp. 3).     

The location of the Trait Emotional Intelligence in the Zuckerman's Personality Model space and the role of General Intelligence and social status

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between Emotional Intelligence (EI) measured by the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) and personality measured by the Zuckerman‐Kuhlman‐Aluja Personality Questionnaire (ZKA‐PQ) with the purpose of analyzing similarities and differences of both psychological constructs. Additionally, we studied the relationship among EI, personality, General Intelligence (GI) and a social position index (SPI). Results showed that the ZKA‐PQ predicts the 66% (facets) and the 64% (factors) of the TEIQue. High scores in EI correlated negatively with Neuroticism (r: –0.66) and Aggressiveness (r: –0.27); and positively with Extraversion (r: 0.62). Oblique factorial analyses demonstrated that TEIQue scales were located basically in the Neuroticism and Extraversion factors. The SPI and GI no loaded in any factor. These findings showed that EI is a not a distinct construct of personality and it cannot be isolated in the ZKA‐PQ personality space. GI is related with the SPI (r: 0.26), and EI correlated with GI (r: 0.18) and SPI (r: 0.16). Nevertheless, we found differences between GI high groups and the TEIQue and ZKA‐PQ factors when controlling age and sex. These findings are discussed in the individual differences context.     

Algorithmic complexity for short binary strings applied to psychology: a primer

As human randomness production has come to be more closely studied and used to assess executive functions (especially inhibition), many normative measures for assessing the degree to which a sequence is randomlike have been suggested. However, each of these measures focuses on one feature of randomness, leading researchers to have to use multiple measures. Although algorithmic complexity has been suggested as a means for overcoming this inconvenience, it has never been used, because standard Kolmogorov complexity is inapplicable to short strings (e.g., of length l?≤?50), due to both computational and theoretical limitations. Here, we describe a novel technique (the coding theorem method) based on the calculation of a universal distribution, which yields an objective and universal measure of algorithmic complexity for short strings that approximates Kolmogorov–Chaitin complexity.     

A latent class distance association model for cross‐classified data with a categorical response variable

In this paper we propose a latent class distance association model for clustering in the predictor space of large contingency tables with a categorical response variable. The rows of such a table are characterized as profiles of a set of explanatory variables, while the columns represent a single outcome variable. In many cases such tables are sparse, with many zero entries, which makes traditional models problematic. By clustering the row profiles into a few specific classes and representing these together with the categories of the response variable in a low‐dimensional Euclidean space using a distance association model, a parsimonious prediction model can be obtained. A generalized EM algorithm is proposed to estimate the model parameters and the adjusted Bayesian information criterion statistic is employed to test the number of mixture components and the dimensionality of the representation. An empirical example highlighting the advantages of the new approach and comparing it with traditional approaches is presented.