Immediate memory spans in dementia

Spatial span (Corsi's block-tapping test) and verbal spans for digits (Wechsler Digits Forward Test) and for words were measured in 30 normal subjects and in 51 demented patients, divided into two groups (mildly demented and severely demented) according to selective clinical and neuropsychological criteria. Statistical analysis showed significant differences among the three groups for spatial span. By contrast, controls' and mildly demented patients' performances on both verbal spans were not significantly different. These findings are discussed in the light of theory about working memory.     

Lateralized hand gesture during speech

A group of individuals conversing in natural dyads and a group of lecturers were observed for lateral hand movement patterns during speech. Right-handed individuals in both groups displayed a significant right hand bias for gesture movements but no lateral bias for self-touching movements. The study provides external validity for previous laboratory studies of lateralized hand gesture. The results were interpreted as evidence of a central processor for both spoken and gestural communication.     

Social representations and memory: The case of AIDS

In this study evidence is given on the mechanisms subjects use to guarantee the stability of their social representations. An initial interview was held in which subjects were asked about the causes of AIDS, affected groups and modes of transmission. Their responses were found to divide into two social representations of AIDS: a conservative-blaming representation and a liberal representation. Subjects were then given technical information about AIDS. Two weeks later, the same subjects were given a free recall test and a recognition test. The results of these tests confirmed subject's tendency to select information which is congruent with their pre-existing representations, and to distort the recall of contradictory information in order to make it compatible with pre-existing representations.     

Effects of Parental Acceptance-Rejection on Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors: A Longitudinal,Multicultural Study

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Grounded in Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Theory, this study assessed children’s (N?=?1315) perceptions of maternal and paternal...     

Skilled Observation and Change Blindness: A Comparison of Law Enforcement and Student Samples

Some evidence suggests that expertise and observational skills training can reduce attentional errors, such as change blindness. Laypeople typically assume that law enforcement officers possess acute observational skills, but no research to date has compared law enforcement and lay samples on their susceptibility to change blindness. In the present study, student and law enforcement samples completed a change blindness task and attempted to identify the target(s) from four line‐ups. Law enforcement officers and students were equally susceptible to change blindness regarding the switch in the target's identity, but students were more likely than officers to detect changes in the target's clothing. Students also performed better on the line‐up task, overall, than officers. Additionally, whereas students' confidence was positively correlated with identification accuracy under some circumstances, officers' confidence was either uncorrelated or negatively correlated with accuracy. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest some factors accounting for law enforcement officers' relatively poor performance on these tasks. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Nature of Nonverbal Working Memory Fractionation: A Case of Selective Spatial Short-Term Memory Deficit in a Child

Several lines of research on adult subjects demonstrate a visual/spatial fractionation of nonverbal working memory (WM), while behavioral studies on normal children support the idea of a static/dynamic distinction. In the present paper, we report a child (Z.M.) who failed on nonverbal WM tasks. To verify the nature of his defect, we carried out two experiments: in Experiment 1, Z.M. failed on spatial WM tasks but not on visual WM tasks and was not affected by the static/dynamic format of stimulus presentation; in Experiment 2, this visual/spatial dissociation was extended to the imagery domain. These results are best accounted for within the visual/spatial fractionation of WM and confirmed the role of WM in mental imagery. Clinical and rehabilitative implications of the present findings are also discussed.     

“Avoiding or approaching eyes”? Introversion/extraversion affects the gaze-cueing effect

We investigated whether the extra-/introversion personality dimension can influence processing of others’ eye gaze direction and emotional facial expression during a target detection task. On the basis of previous evidence showing that self-reported trait anxiety can affect gaze-cueing with emotional faces, we also verified whether trait anxiety can modulate the influence of intro-/extraversion on behavioral performance. Fearful, happy, angry or neutral faces, with either direct or averted gaze, were presented before the target appeared in spatial locations congruent or incongruent with stimuli’s eye gaze direction. Results showed a significant influence of intra-/extraversion dimension on gaze-cueing effect for angry, happy, and neutral faces with averted gaze. Introverts did not show the gaze congruency effect when viewing angry expressions, but did so with happy and neutral faces; extraverts showed the opposite pattern. Importantly, the influence of intro-/extraversion on gaze-cueing was not mediated by trait anxiety. These findings demonstrated that personality differences can shape processing of interactions between relevant social signals.