Instability in memory phenomena: A common puzzle and a unifying explanation

In mixed lists, stable free recall advantages are observed for encoding conditions that are unusual, bizarre, or attract extensive individual item elaboration relative to more common encoding conditions; but this recall advantage is often eliminated or reversed in pure lists. We attempt to explain this ubiquitous memory puzzle with an item-order account that assumes that (1) free recall of unrelated lists depends on order and item information; (2) unusual items attract greater individual item-processing but disrupt order encoding regardless of list composition; and (3) list composition determines differences in order encoding across unusual and common items. We show that the item-order account provides a unifying explanation of five memory phenomena for which the requisite data exist. The account also successfully anticipates pure-list reversals, in which the standard mixed-list recall pattern is obtained in pure, structured lists, a finding that competing accounts cannot handle. Extending the item-order account to other “established” recall phenomena may prove fruitful.     

Housing First and Photovoice: Transforming Lives,Communities, and Systems

This article presents findings from a community‐based participatory evaluation of a Housing First program on the Island of O'ahu. In this study, clients in a Housing First program used Photovoice to evaluate the program and to advocate for progressive housing policies. Written together by members of the Housing First Photovoice group, this collaborative article describes the outcomes from both the Housing First program and the Photovoice project and demonstrates the ways in which participatory program evaluations can interact with client‐driven programs like Housing First to produce a cumulative, transformative impact. Findings suggest that community psychologists hoping to re‐engage with community mental health systems through enacting transformative change should consider taking a community‐based participatory approach to program evaluation because increased client voice in community mental health programs and their evaluations can have far‐reaching, transformative impacts for research, practice, and policy.     

Opposing influences on conflict-driven adaptation in the Eriksen flanker task

Compatibility effects in conflict paradigms are reduced following incompatible trials, and this effect is referred to as conflict adaptation. A perplexing pattern exists, however, with conflict-driven adaptation emerging in several paradigms (e.g., Stroop, Simon) but not consistently in the Eriksen and Eriksen (1974) flanker task. The present experiments address the seemingly elusive presence of conflict adaptation in this task. Experiment 1 shows that a negative-priming-like slowing may be masking conflict adaptation in the flanker task. In Experiment 2, conflict adaptation was revealed when a larger stimulus set designed to reduce negative priming was implemented. Taken together, the findings indicate that a consideration of processes opposing conflict adaptation in the flanker task may help reconcile prior findings.     

Age differences in Stroop interference: contributions of general slowing and task-specific deficits

This study examined the contributions of general slowing and task-specific deficits to age-related changes in Stroop interference. Nine hundred thirty-eight participants aged 20 to 89 years completed an abbreviated Stroop color-naming task and a subset of 281 participants also completed card-sorting, simple reaction time, and choice reaction time tasks. Age-related increases in incongruent color-naming latency and card-sorting perseverative errors were observed. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the processing speed measures accounted for significant variance on both dependent measures, but that there was also a significant residual effect of age. An additional regression analysis showed that some of the variance in incongruent color-naming, after controlling for processing speed, was shared with the variance in perseverative errors. Overall, findings suggest that the age difference in Stroop interference is partially attributable to general slowing, but is also attributable to age-related changes in task-specific processes such as inhibitory control.     

Prospective memory and aging: preserved spontaneous retrieval,but impaired deactivation,in older adults

Prospective remembering is partially supported by cue-driven spontaneous retrieval processes. We investigated spontaneous retrieval processes in younger and older adults by presenting prospective memory target cues during a lexical decision task following instructions that the prospective memory task was finished. Spontaneous retrieval was inferred from slowed lexical decision responses to target cues (i.e., intention interference). When the intention was finished, younger adults efficiently deactivated their intention, but the older adults continued to retrieve their intentions. Levels of inhibitory functioning were negatively associated with intention interference in the older adult group, but not in the younger adult group. These results indicate that normal aging might not compromise spontaneous retrieval processes but that the ability to deactivate completed intentions is impaired.