Remembering the Street Names of One's Childhood Neighbourhood: A Study of Very Long-term Retention

Life-span retention of street names was studied in a sample of former students of a Dutch elementary school. Participants were requested to recall the street names of their childhood neighbourhood and indicate their position on a map. In addition, information was gathered concerning (a) the extensiveness of the original learning experience, (b) its elaborateness, and (c) the amount of interference from similar materials occurring between original learning experience and time of recall. Retention intervals varied from 0 to 71 years. Amount of exposure, elaborateness of learning, and retroactive interference all contributed to the memorability of names. In addition, the forgetting curve showed a permastore effect (Bahrick, 1984), suggesting that memory for non-schematic, incidentally learned material is subject to processes of forgetting similar to those that affect intentionally learned material, such as subject-matter acquired in school.     

Changes in Athletic Identity and Life Satisfaction of Elite Athletes as a Function of Retirement Status

The purpose of this study was to track changes in athletic identity and life satisfaction of elite athletes over time as a function of retirement status and the voluntariness of retirement decisions. Sixty-two elite Australian athletes from 3 different phases of their athletic careers were surveyed 5 years apart. Athletic identity was shown to decrease as athletes approached retirement. Athletes who retired voluntarily reported an increase in life satisfaction post-retirement. These findings support the need for athlete career education programs that emphasize autonomy and career planning.     

Classification of Planning and Violent Behaviours in Serial Homicide: A Cross‐National Comparison Between South Africa and the US

Recent literature suggests that different ‘styles’ of homicide will most appropriately be reflected in the different types of behaviours committed by offenders during the crime. In the last few years, there has been a move to standardise classification systems of single homicides and establish their cross‐national generalisability. Literature on serial homicide to date has mostly centred on homicides occurring in the US. However, national differences due to factors such as culture, national identity, political, and socio‐economic circumstances may decrease the applicability of these models or certain aspects thereof in other countries and thus must be evaluated. The present study tested the applicability in the South African context of a recently developed US‐based serial homicide crime scene classification framework. Specifically, this study compared the thematic differentiation in planning and violent behaviours that the offenders engage in and how this differentiation compares with that in the US. The sample consisted of 25 homicides that were in total responsible for the murder of 267 victims. Results indicated that overall, the framework is useful and applicable in the South African sample, but important environmental and contextual constraints must be taken into account. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

South African Serial Homicide: Consistency in Victim Types and Crime Scene Actions Across Series

Key to understanding the significance of behavioural evidence for linkage purposes is in establishing how consistently an offender displays the same or similar behaviours across their series. There have however to date been very few studies aiming at identifying salient components of offending behaviour that can be used reliably for linking individual crimes as part of a single series. In addition, studies that have been conducted have all dealt with serial homicide in the Western world and have been based on small samples of cases from each country. Some of the recent literature has started to disentangle some of these salient features, notably the victim, violence levels, control, and planning. The current study focused on evaluating the consistency of these features across series, using a sample of serial homicides from South Africa consisting of 30 offenders with a total of 283 victims and 235 crime scenes. Results indicate that the level of interaction with the victim may be influential to the stability or instability of offending patterns across the series. How offenders approach planning in their offence also showed a certain degree of consistency, with patterns of violence being the least consistent across the series of all components tested. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contributions of the Insula to Cognition and Emotion

Historically, the insula was considered primary gustatory cortex. Now it is known to play a more comprehensive role in the processing of sensory information, including acting as primary cortex for interoceptive information, including autonomic nervous system mediated changes. As such, it is critical for emotional feeling in accord with the James-Lange theory, a role previously ascribed to the limbic system. Neuroimaged abnormal grey matter volumes or activity levels in the insula have been associated with schizophrenia, eating disorders, anxiety and mood disorders, conduct disorder, autism, addiction, and chronic pain. The significance of these abnormal activity patterns remains theoretical. Neuropsychological studies have linked dominant insula injury with various symptoms of aphasia, but its exact role in language processing remains uncertain as most cases involve lesions that extend into perisylvian language zones. Functional neuroimaging studies have found insula hyper-activations, typically in conjunction with anterior cingulate cortex, for all manner of experimental tasks including those involving perception, intentional action, and consciousness. Such neuroimaged activity is unlikely to be task-specific, but rather reflective of generic changes in autonomic activity in response to salience, homeostatic incongruence, or cognitive challenge.     

Board oversight of community benefit: an ethical imperative

Board oversight of community benefit responsibility in tax-exempt organizations in the nonprofit health care sector is attracting considerable attention. Scrutiny by the IRS and other official bodies has led to stricter measures of compliance with the community benefit standard. But stricter compliance does not sufficiently engage the underlying ethical imperative for boards to provide effective oversight--an imperative that recent research suggests has not been sufficiently honored. This analysis considers why there is a distinctively ethical imperative for board oversight, the organizational nature of the imperative involved, and practical ways to fulfill its obligations. We adopt an organizational ethics paradigm to illuminate the constituent components of the ethical imperative and to clarify emerging benchmarks as flexible guidelines. As these emerging benchmarks enhance board oversight of community benefit they also can shed light on what it means to be a virtuous organization.     

Halt and recovery of illusory motion perception from peripherally viewed static images

We quantitatively investigated the halt and recovery of illusory motion perception in static images. With steady fixation, participants viewed images causing four different motion illusions. The results showed that the time courses of the Fraser-Wilcox illusion and the modified Fraser-Wilcox illusion (i.e., "Rotating Snakes") were very similar, while the Ouchi and Enigma illusions showed quite a different trend. When participants viewed images causing the Fraser-Wilcox illusion and the modified Fraser-Wilcox illusion, they typically experienced disappearance of the illusory motion within several seconds. After a variable interstimulus interval (ISI), the images were presented again in the same retinal position. The magnitude of the illusory motion from the second image presentation increased as the ISI became longer. This suggests that the same adaptation process either directly causes or attenuates both the Fraser-Wilcox illusion and the modified Fraser-Wilcox illusion.