Look who's talking! Facial appearance can bias source monitoring

When we see a stranger's face we quickly form impressions of his or her personality, and expectations of how the stranger might behave. Might these intuitive character judgements bias source monitoring? Participants read headlines “reported” by a trustworthy- and an untrustworthy-looking reporter. Subsequently, participants recalled which reporter provided each headline. Source memory for likely-sounding headlines was most accurate when a trustworthy-looking reporter had provided the headlines. Conversely, source memory for unlikely-sounding headlines was most accurate when an untrustworthy-looking reporter had provided the headlines. This bias appeared to be driven by the use of decision criteria during retrieval rather than differences in memory encoding. Nevertheless, the bias was apparently unrelated to variations in subjective confidence. These results show for the first time that intuitive, stereotyped judgements of others' appearance can bias memory attributions analogously to the biases that occur when people receive explicit information to distinguish sources. We suggest possible real-life consequences of these stereotype-driven source-monitoring biases.     

‘Journeys’ in the Life-Writing of Adult-Child Dementia Caregivers

This article explores how Alzheimer’s disease caregivers struggle under the impact of a parent’s memory loss on their own personality. In particular, it analyses how caregivers perceive and, thus, present their experiences of the ever intensifying caregiving activity in terms of a ‘journey’. In doing so, this work takes into account both the patient’s continuing bodily as well as cognitive decline and its intricately linked influence on the caregiver’s physical and emotional stability. Equally, this study investigates how caregivers portray memory loss, and how their portrayal fits into our conceptualisation of illness narratives and the culture of autobiographical writing.     

A neural network model of inhibitory processes in subliminal priming

Masked priming experiments have revealed a precise set of facilitatory and inhibitory visuomotor control processes. Most notably, inhibitory effects have been identified in which prime-target compatibility induces performance costs and prime-target incompatibility induces performance benefits. We argue that this profile of data is commensurate with an “emergency braking mechanism”, whereby responses can be retracted as a result of changing sensory evidence. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a neural network-based explanation of this phenomenon. This is obtained through the use of feedforward inhibition to implement backward masking, lateral inhibition to implement response competition, and opponent processing mechanisms to implement response retraction. Although the model remains simple, it does a very good job of reproducing the available masked priming data. For example, it reproduces a large spectrum of reaction time data across a number of different experimental conditions. Perhaps most notably, however, it also reproduces lateralized readiness potentials that have been recorded while subjects perform different conditions. In addition, it provides a concrete set of testable predictions.     

Differential Course of Executive Control Changes During Normal Aging

ABSTRACT

Normal aging has been associated with executive control deficits, but it is as yet unclear whether different executive subprocesses are differentially affected during the course of aging. The present study aimed to investigate age effects on a range of executive control subcomponents. Four consecutive age groups (20–30 years, 31–45 years, 46–60 years, 61–75 years), matched on present state IQ and mood, were compared on tasks of strategic memory processing, verbal fluency, reasoning, inhibition, task management, and self-rating of executive abilities. Deficits concerning the suppression of habitual and experimentally induced prepotent response tendencies and the ability to efficiently divide attention were observed in subjects over 60 years of age compared to the younger groups, while memory, verbal fluency, and reasoning were largely unaffected. Results suggest a sharp decline of executive function after age 60 and a differential course of different executive subcomponents across aging, adding further support to a multi-dimensional model of executive function.     

Collaborative IT offshoring relationships and professional role identities: Reflections from a field study

While IT offshoring has generated heated debates both in scholarly circles and in the popular press, its impact on professional role identities and career experiences of situated individuals in both onshore and offshore locations has received much less attention. In this paper, we present a qualitative case study featuring a large global German technology firm and examine the multiple ways in which working within a collaborative offshoring arrangement has influenced the reconfiguration of German and Indian respondents' professional role identities. In light of these changes, the findings also highlight how emerging offshoring practices led to an ongoing reassessment of our respondents' career aspirations and strategies. In particular, our study draws attention to the often complex means deployed by individuals working in an offshoring environment to further their career prospects. From a practitioner perspective, we suggest several steps managers can take to help employees overcome the anxiety and insecurities, which inevitably seem to accompany the offshoring phenomenon.     

Context, not conflict, drives cognitive control

Theories of cognitive control generally assume that perceived conflict acts as a signal to engage inhibitory mechanisms that suppress subsequent conflicting information. Crucially, an absence of conflict is not regarded as being a relevant signal for cognitive control. Using a cueing, a priming, and a Simon task, we provide evidence that conflict does not have this unique signal status: Encountering a conflict does not lead to behavioral adjustments on subsequent conflict trials, whereas encountering a nonconflict trial does lead to behavioral adjustments on subsequent nonconflict trials. We propose that this apparent role-reversal can be explained by a mechanism that responds to both the presence and the absence of conflict, down-regulating the visuomotor system following conflict, and up-regulating it following nonconflict.     

Discrepancies Between Implicit and Explicit Self‐concepts of Intelligence Predict Performance on Tests of Intelligence

Three studies investigated the correspondence between implicit and explicit self‐concepts of intelligence and how that correspondence is related to performance on different intelligence tests. Configurations of these two self‐concepts were found to be consistently related to performance on intelligence tests in all three studies. For individuals who self‐reported high intelligence (high explicit self‐concept), a negative implicit self‐concept (measured with the Implicit Association Test) led to a decrease in performance on intelligence tests. For participants whose self‐report indicated a low self‐concept of intelligence, positive automatic associations between the self and intelligence had a similar effect. In line with a stress hypothesis, the results indicate that any discrepant configuration of self‐concepts will impair performance. Importantly, the prediction of performance on intelligence tests by the self‐concept of intelligence was shown to be independent of self‐esteem (Study 3). Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trialog und Psychosenpsychotherapie

?Trialogue in this context is defined as the equal encounter of people with experience of psychoses, relatives and therapists in the sense of reciprocal learning and mutual respect. This concept has its origins in Germany in the so-called psychosis seminars but has now become of importance for experiences with other diseases and for other levels of encounters ?C for psychiatric practice, anti-stigma work, tribunals, for psychiatry planning and quality assurance, teaching, congresses, further education and also for research. In this article the trialogue will be presented based on the targets, experiences and results of psychosis seminars and compared with the results of psychoeducation. Finally, the concept of trialogue will be placed in context with the development of the psychotherapy of psychoses: are experiences of trialogue also relevant for psychotherapy? Can not only form but also content impulses be derived? Can trialogue strengthen and support the psychotherapy of psychoses as a whole? In this context the empirical results of the trialogue research project SuSi on the subjective meaning and significance of psychoses will be presented showing a surprisingly clear case for sense orientation and for a biography-oriented psychotherapy of psychoses.     

Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) flexibly adjust their human-directed behavior to the actions of their human partners in a problem situation

Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have been shown to actively initiate triadic communicative interactions by looking at a human partner or by alternating their gaze between the human and an object when being faced with an out-of-reach reward or an unsolvable problem. It has hardly been investigated, however, whether dogs flexibly adjust their human-directed behavior to the actions of their partners, which indicate their willingness and abilities to help them when they are faced with a problem. Here, in two experiments, we confronted dogs—after initially allowing them to learn how to manipulate an apparatus—with two problem situations: with an empty apparatus and a blocked apparatus. In Experiment 1, we showed that dogs looked back at their owners more when the owners had previously encouraged them, independently from the problem they faced. In Experiment 2, we provided dogs with two experimenters and allowed them to learn through an initial phase that each of the experimenters could solve one of the two problems: the Filler re-baited the empty apparatus and the Helper unblocked the blocked apparatus. We found that dogs could learn to recognize the ability of the Filler and spent time close to her when the apparatus was empty. Independently from the problem, however, they always approached the Helper first. The results of the present study indicate that dogs may have a limited understanding of physical problems and how they can be solved by a human partner. Nevertheless, dogs are able to adjust their behavior to situation-specific characteristics of their human partner’s behavior.     

Diagnostic value of alpha 1-acid glycoprotein in the cerebrospinal fluid

Samples from 1415 neurological patients were used to study the diagnostic value of acid alpha 1-glycoprotein in the lumbar cerebrospinal fluid. The value of analysis for this substance is considered to lie in the detection of non-specific acute-phase reactions of various causes in the CNS with special reference to barrier problems. The large number of pathologically elevated values associated with acute inflammations of the meninges and cerebral parenchyme is particularly striking. The results of the studies are analyzed on the basis of comprehensive control investigations (n = 559).