Long-term memory for performed and observed actions: retrieval awareness and source monitoring

The self-performed task (SPT) paradigm was employed to investigate incidental memory for action events, focusing on states of awareness at retrieval (Remembering-Knowing) and source monitoring in performed and observed actions, at delays of 1 and 2 weeks. Recognition was better for performed than observed actions, but this effect was visible only after 1 week of retention. Conversely, observed actions were associated with better source memory at both delays. When the source was correctly identified, performed and observed actions were accompanied by equal proportions of Remember judgements. However, when source monitoring was incorrect, performed actions were more frequently associated with a feeling of re-experiencing the original event, thus suggesting an enactment-related recollective superiority, although secondary to the availability of reliable contextual information.     

Getting a grip on numbers: numerical magnitude priming in object grasping

To investigate the functional connection between numerical cognition and action planning, the authors required participants to perform different grasping responses depending on the parity status of Arabic digits. The results show that precision grip actions were initiated faster in response to small numbers, whereas power grips were initiated faster in response to large numbers. Moreover, analyses of the grasping kinematics reveal an enlarged maximum grip aperture in the presence of large numbers. Reaction time effects remained present when controlling for the number of fingers used while grasping but disappeared when participants pointed to the object. The data indicate a priming of size-related motor features by numerals and support the idea that representations of numbers and actions share common cognitive codes within a generalized magnitude system.     

Attentional Orienting to Emotional Faces Moderates the Association Between Callous-Unemotional Traits and Peer-Nominated Aggression in Young Adolescent School Children

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with aggressive behavior but preliminary research suggests this relationship is modified by patterns of emotional processing. This study examined whether attentional orienting to emotional faces moderated the association between CU traits and peer-nominated aggression in 251 middle school students (53% females, mean age = 13.24 years, SD = 0.73). Attentional orienting was assessed using an emotional faces (i.e., angry, fearful, happy, sad, and neutral) variant of the dot-probe task. Students also completed a self-report measure of CU traits and their classmates made peer nominations of aggression. Logistic regression analyses showed that peer-nominated aggression was positively related to CU traits at low levels of attentional orienting to angry faces, whereas aggression was unrelated to CU traits at high levels of attentional orienting to angry faces. That is, peer-nominated aggression was greatest for youth high on CU traits who were not engaged by angry faces. These findings support the importance of considering different patterns of emotional responding when studying the association between CU traits and aggressive behavior in youth.     

Postacquisition injection of tetrodotoxin into the parabrachial nuclei elicits partial disruption of passive avoidance reaction in rats.

The recent discovery that post-trial functional blockade of the parabrachial nuclei by intracerebral injection of 10 ng tetrodotoxin (TTX) disrupts acquisition of conditioned taste aversion (CTA) (Ivanova & Bures, 1990a,b) has prompted attempts to ascertain the role of this structure in other types of inhibitory learning. In Experiment 1, rats with implanted parabrachial cannulae were trained in a step-through avoidance task and received bilateral TTX (2 x 10 ng) immediately after the acquisition trial; they displayed significantly weakened avoidance of the shock compartment 2 days later. In Experiment 2, rats were anesthetized with pentobarbital (50 mg/kg) immediately after passive avoidance acquisition and received parabrachial TTX 15 min later; whereas anesthesia alone left the passive avoidance reaction (PAR) unaffected, TTX elicited similar disruption as in unanesthetized animals. In Experiment 3, TTX was injected in anesthetized animals 0, 1, 2, or 4 days after PAR acquisition. The amnesic effect was significant when the acquisition-TTX delay had been prolonged to 24 but not to 48 or 96 h. Since CTA is disrupted by reversible blockade of parabrachial nuclei and of the adjacent reticular formation elicited up to 4 days after acquisition (Ivanova & Bures, 1990b), PAR seems to be impaired to a lesser degree and for a shorter time than CTA by similar TTX treatment.     

Representativeness in the Market for Bets on National Football League Games

In laboratory experiments the representativeness heuristic has been shown to affect participants' judgments. Finding representativeness in a real-world economic market would indicate that even decision makers who are highly experienced and motivated use the heuristic, and would, in addition, violate the efficient market hypotheses, i.e. the theory that market prices fully reflect all available information. Testing for representativeness in the market for bets on National Football Leagues games avoids complications that make tests of representativeness in a stock market difficult to interpret. Evidence for representativeness in the NFL betting market is found in a data set from an earlier study which failed to test for representativeness, and in the 1976– 9 market. Representativeness does not appear to exist in the contemporary market, however, perhaps because with the advent of the personal computer the market depends less on purely human judgment.     

Multiple mechanisms for recency with vowels and consonants

Three experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that the difference in recency effect between vowel-contrasting and stop-contrasting lists of syllables in immediate ordered recall can be explained by item discriminability and regular short-term memory mechanisms, without any recourse to echoic memory or precategorical acoustic storage (PAS). In Experiment 1, the short-term memory mechanisms were manipulated by reducing amount of output interference and length of retention interval. The partial-report technique was used. The most important finding was the usual final-position recency effect (difference in recall between the fifth and sixth serial positions) for the vowel lists but not for the stop lists, regardless of the type of report. Thus the PAS theory could not be rejected. In Experiments 2 and 3, the last item was differentiated from the other items of the list, either by lengthening the interstimulus interval between the last and the next-to-last (Experiment 2) or by increasing the intensity of the last item (Experiment 3). In both cases, an increase of the final-position recency effect was found even for stop lists. Since a drop in recall errors was also obtained for the fourth item when its intensity was increased (von Restorff effect), this final-position recency effect for stop lists is likely to be due to item discriminability, and not to echoic memory for the last item. Item discriminability appeared to be the critical factor.     

Completeness theorem for dummett's LC quantified and some of its extensions

Dummett's logic LC quantified, Q-LC, is shown to be characterized by the extended frame Q⁺, ,D, where Q⁺ is the set of non-negative rational numbers, is the numerical relation less or equal then and D is the domain function such that for all v, w Q⁺, D_v and if v w, then D _v . D _v D _w . Moreover, simple completeness proofs of extensions of Q-LC are given.     

Bull's Theorem by the Method of Diagrams

We show how to use diagrams in order to obtain straightforward completeness theorems for extensions of K4.3 and a very simple and constructive proof of Bull's theorem: every normal extension of S4.3 has the finite model property.