The roles of working memory and intervening task difficulty in determining the benefits of repetition

Memory is better when learning events are spaced, as compared with massed (i.e., the spacing effect). Recent theories posit that retrieval of an item’s earlier presentation contributes to the spacing effect, which suggests that individual differences in the ability to retrieve an earlier event may influence the benefit of spaced repetition. The present study examined (1) the difficulty of task demands between repetitions, which should modulate the ability to retrieve the earlier information, and (2) individual differences in working memory in a spaced repetition paradigm. Across two experiments, participants studied a word set twice, each separated by an interval where duration was held constant, and the difficulty of the intervening task was manipulated. After a short retention interval following the second presentation, participants recalled the word set. Those who scored high on working memory measures benefited more from repeated study than did those who scored lower on working memory measures, regardless of task difficulty. Critically, a crossover interaction was observed between working memory and intervening task difficulty: Individuals with low working memory scores benefited more when task difficulty was easy than when it was difficult, but individuals with high working memory scores produced the opposite effect. These results suggest that individual differences in working memory should be considered in optimizing the benefits of repetition learning.     

Mutual Interactions Between Speech and Finger Movements

Speech output and finger movements were recorded as right-handed males repeated a syllable while making cyclical finger movements in three experimental conditions: (a) maintaining constant amplitude in both response systems; (b) alternating speech amplitude while attempting to maintain constant finger movement amplitude; and (c) alternating finger movement amplitude while attempting to maintain constant speech amplitude. Observations showed that output of the two response systems was coupled (one syllable was uttered with each finger movement) and entrained in amplitude (the amplitude pattern of the response that the subject attempted to keep constant followed that of the concurrently-active amplitude-modulated response).

These interactions were bidirectional and were present with both left-handed and right-handed finger movements. The interactions are more extensive and subtle than mere interference with one response system by the other, and apparently do not depend on anatomical overlap of the responding neural systems.     

Current Assessment Practice,Personality Measurement,and Rorschach Usage by Psychologists

The hypothesis under evaluation was that persons giving a larger number of M responses (minimum 5) would show greater ease in expressing themselves creatively than a group of persons giving low M in the Rorschach (0 to 2). Groups were matched on variables of age, education, and socio-economic status. Twenty-two high M and 21 low M persons were tested for creative expression by means of written and verbal TAT, drawings and Lowenfeld Mosaic Designs. Ability to be creatively expressive for high as compared to low M Ss was very great, reaching significance levels beyond .001 on all tests. Flexor and extensor quality of M appeared to be unrelated to ease of creative expression.     

The Best–Worst Scaling Approach: An Alternative to Schwartz's Values Survey

The miniature situations method is a behavioral approach to personality assessment. The work reported here attempted to adopt the miniature situations format for measuring the concept of openness-to-experience. A factor analysis of 38 miniature situations items resulted in nine openness factors. There was evidence for the concurrent validity of four of these factors. When the same openness items were presented in a self-report format to an independent sample, openness scores tended to be substantially higher.     

Visual–spatial attention aids the maintenance of object representations in visual working memory

Theories have proposed that the maintenance of object representations in visual working memory is aided by a spatial rehearsal mechanism. In this study, we used two different approaches to test the hypothesis that overt and covert visual–spatial attention mechanisms contribute to the maintenance of object representations in visual working memory. First, we tracked observers’ eye movements while they remembered a variable number of objects during change-detection tasks. We observed that during the blank retention interval, participants spontaneously shifted gaze to the locations that the objects had occupied in the memory array. Next, we hypothesized that if attention mechanisms contribute to the maintenance of object representations, then drawing attention away from the object locations during the retention interval should impair object memory during these change-detection tasks. Supporting this prediction, we found that attending to the fixation point in anticipation of a brief probe stimulus during the retention interval reduced change-detection accuracy, even on the trials in which no probe occurred. These findings support models of working memory in which visual–spatial selection mechanisms contribute to the maintenance of object representations.     

Enhanced memory for emotional pictures: A product of increased attention to affective stimuli?

The current experiment addressed the question, is enhanced memory for emotional pictures due to increased attention to affective stimuli? Participants viewed pairs of pictures (emotional-neutral or neutral-neutral) whilst their eye movements were recorded; participants had to decide which picture out of each pair they preferred. There was increased attention to positive pictures and decreased attention to negative images during picture viewing. Despite this, when a recognition test was given 1 week later, memory enhancements were found for negative pictures only. Moreover, although there was a general correlation between total inspection time and memory performance, this reliability was clear only for neutral pictures, and not for emotional images. The results suggest that memory advantages for emotional pictures can occur without increased attention to such images.