Strategies in visuospatial working memory for learning virtual shapes

This study investigated visuospatial working memory (WM) strategies people use to remember unfamiliar randomly generated shapes in the context of an interactive computer‐based visuospatial WM task. In a three‐phase experiment with random shapes, participants (n = 94) first interactively determined if two equivalent shapes were rotated or reflected; second, memorized the shape; and third, determined if an imprint in a profile view of the ground was a rotated, reflected imprint of the shape, or an imprint not matching the original shape. Participants self‐reported these strategies: Key feature, shape interaction, association/elaboration, holistic/perspective, divide and conquer, mental rotation/reflection and others. Participants reporting key features strategy were significantly more accurate on the computer‐based visuospatial WM task. These results highlight the importance of strategy in visuospatial WM. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fair Shares: A Preliminary Framework and Case Analyzing the Ethics of Offshoring

Much has been written about the offshoring phenomenon from an economic efficiency perspective. Most authors have attempted to measure the net economic effects of the strategy and many purport to show that “in the long run” that benefits will outweigh the costs. There is also a relatively large literature on implementation which describes the best way to manage the offshoring process. But what is the morality of offshoring? What is its “rightness” or “wrongness?” Little analysis of the ethics of offshoring has been completed thus far. This paper develops a preliminary framework for analyzing the ethics of offshoring and then applies this framework to basic case study of offshoring in the U.S. The paper following discusses the definition of offshoring; shifts to the basic philosophical grounding of the ethical concepts; develops a template for conducting an ethics analysis of offshoring; applies this template using basic data for offshoring in the United States; and conducts a preliminary ethical analysis of the phenomenon in that country, using a form of utilitarianism as an analytical baseline. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research.     

Memory Without Consolidation: Temporal Distinctiveness Explains Retroactive Interference

Is consolidation needed to account for retroactive interference in free recall? Interfering mental activity during the retention interval of a memory task impairs performance, in particular if the interference occurs in temporal proximity to the encoding of the to‐be‐remembered (TBR) information. There are at least two rival theoretical accounts of this temporal gradient of retroactive interference. The cognitive neuroscience literature has suggested neural consolidation is a pivotal factor determining item recall. According to this account, interfering activity interrupts consolidation processes that would otherwise stabilize the memory representations of TBR items post‐encoding. Temporal distinctiveness theory, by contrast, proposes that the retrievability of items depends on their isolation in psychological time. According to this theory, information processed after the encoding of TBR material will reduce the temporal distinctiveness of the TBR information. To test between these accounts, implementations of consolidation were added to the SIMPLE model of memory and learning. We report data from two experiments utilizing a two‐list free recall paradigm. Modeling results imply that SIMPLE was able to model the data and did not benefit from the addition of consolidation. It is concluded that the temporal gradient of retroactive interference cannot be taken as evidence for memory consolidation.     

Musical rhythm discrimination explains individual differences in grammar skills in children

This study considered a relation between rhythm perception skills and individual differences in phonological awareness and grammar abilities, which are two language skills crucial for academic achievement. Twenty‐five typically developing 6‐year‐old children were given standardized assessments of rhythm perception, phonological awareness, morpho‐syntactic competence, and non‐verbal cognitive ability. Rhythm perception accounted for 48% of the variance in morpho‐syntactic competence after controlling for non‐verbal IQ, socioeconomic status, and prior musical activities. Children with higher phonological awareness scores were better able to discriminate complex rhythms than children with lower scores, but not after controlling for IQ. This study is the first to show a relation between rhythm perception skills and morpho‐syntactic production in children with typical language development. These findings extend the literature showing substantial overlap of neurocognitive resources for processing music and language. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: http://youtu.be/_lO692qHDNg     

Choose Your Words Wisely: What Verbal Hesitation Indicates About Eyewitness Accuracy

Researchers have demonstrated qualitative differences in witness verbal reports made in the presence and absence of misinformation. The present study examined changes in linguistic markers present in verbal reports in the context of a repeated‐retrieval misinformation study. After witnessing an event, an immediate retrieval group engaged in a free‐recall test associated with the event. The delayed retrieval group completed a filler task. Following, all participants were presented with a post‐event narrative that included neutral, consistent, and misleading details. Both groups then took two free‐recall tests. We found that hesitations were more likely to accompany correctly remembered details if those details were altered in the narrative, than if there was consistency between the original event and narrative. We also found that retrieval prior to misinformation positively influenced the inclusion of hesitations in free‐recall reports that immediately followed the narrative.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measuring role entrapment of people who stutter

The purpose of this study was to explore whether people who stutter experience role entrapment in the form of vocational stereotyping. To accomplish this, 385 university students reported their perceptions of appropriate career choices for people who stutter. Direct survey procedures, utilizing the newly developed Vocational Advice Scale (VAS), were used in this study. Comparisons for the main effect of speaker status (person who stutters and person who does not stutter) were conducted using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results of this analysis suggested that the university students reported an overall perception that stuttering affected career opportunities and that 20 careers were judged to be inappropriate choices for people who stutter. Conversely, 23 careers were judged to be appropriate choices for people who stutter. Findings of this study provide initial data that supports that people who stutter may suffer from role entrapment related to career choices. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will be able to: (1) provide the definitions of stereotyping, role entrapment, and how these relate to people who stutter; (2) discuss the career choices that college students perceive as appropriate and inappropriate for people who stutter; and (3) summarize the needs for future research in this area.     

Introduction: Belief as Cultural Performance

Abstract

Although the concept of belief has become a focus of critical discussion in other disciplines, sociologists of religion have tended to assume that belief is a universal phenomenon, structured around cognitive propositions which can be made explicit in the context of research surveys and interviews The articles in this special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Religion explore belief in the lives of young people in different religious, cultural, and national contexts to suggest more complex ways in which belief might be conceptualised and researched. While the ‘authenticity’ of belief is a significant value for young people across these cases, the authors show how belief can, in different contexts, be a marker of identity, an expression of socially significant relationships or an organising centre for the lives of individuals and groups. Belief can also be understood as the performance of embodied practices shaped by one’s spatial and cultural environment. In this wider context, training young people in propositional forms of belief is shown to be a particular kind of religious project, which can be unstable and have unintended consequences.     

Imagination and Will

1. Evoked potentials generated by cerebral self-stimulation were studied in white rats. Stimulus trains of 30 biphasic rectangular waves of various repetition rates (30, 50, 100, 150, 200 pps) were employed. The pulses were always 4 msec in width and of fixed intensity at all repetition rates for a given animal. Potential changes during a 2-second interval after the termination of a stimulus train were recorded from various points in the cerebral mass and averaged electronically.

2. The early portion of the 2-second interval was characterized by rhythmic oscillations in the alpha range whose number and amplitude were related to repetition rate of the rectangular waves within the stimulus train. The periodicity of the oscillations when they occurred was not so affected and remained practically constant over subjects, intensity of stimulus, and repetition rate.

3. The number of oscillations was greatest at 200 and 150 pps and diminished with diminishing stimulus repetition rates, the drop being greatest below 100 pps.

4. There was a positive covariation between the rate of lever pressing for self-stimulation and the phenomenon of rhythmic after oscillations in the evoked potential. Animals who refused to press the lever for cerebral self-stimulation showed no rhythmic potentials when the stimulus was delivered by E; animals who had become pressers gave good after-discharges when so stimulated.     

Spouse disclosure patterns in distressed and nondistressed couples

Abstract

To determine whether spouses in nondistressed marriages show greater equity and reciprocity of exchange and a greater degree of congruence than spouses experiencing marital distress, interactive patterns of self-disclosing behavior were examined using the Self-Disclosure Coding System. Clinical wives were found to disclose greater percentages of self-references and at a higher rate than their husbands, and discriminant function analysis correctly discriminated 80% of these spouses. In contrast, the disclosure patterns of nonclinical partners could not be distinguished, indicating greater equity of exchange. Examination of within-couple reciprocity patterns revealed highly similar topographical patterns of disclosure among the nondistressed couples but not among the distressed partners. Finally, the association between content intimacy and affective manner of presentation was stronger for the nondistressed husbands (r = .81) and wives (r = .97) than for the distressed husbands (r = .10) and wives (r = .36), indicating greater clarity of self-revelations among nondistressed couples. These findings are discussed within the context of equity, communication, and behavioral exchange views of marital adjustment.