Language facilitates event memory in early childhood: Child comprehension,adult-provided linguistic support and delayed recall at 16 months

Adult-provided supportive language facilitates memory for the past in preverbal and verbal children. Work conducted with 18-month-olds indicates that children benefit from supportive adult language when tested after a 4-week delay but not when tested immediately after sequence demonstration; moreover, findings reveal that supportive language provided only at test may be more facilitative of recall after a delay relative to supportive language provided only at encoding. In the present study, we examined whether child language comprehension abilities moderated the extent to which preverbal children benefitted from supportive language provided at encoding and test. The findings indicated that child language comprehension and supportive language provided at encoding were unassociated with performance at baseline or immediate imitation; however, the moderating effect of child language comprehension on adult-provided supportive language at encoding and test was observed after a 1-week delay. Correlations revealed continuous associations between general comprehension scores and recall performance after the 1-week delay on sequences presented in the most supportive condition at encoding. Taken together, the presented findings reveal that the complex interplay between language and cognition is established in early childhood, with foundational relations emerging before children are capable of verbally reporting on the past.     

Investigating semantic memory impairments: The contribution of semantic priming

Abstract

The semantic priming task is a valuable tool in the investigation of semantic memory impairments in patients with acquired disorders of language. This is because priming performance reflects automatic or implicit access to semantic information, unlike most other tests of semantic knowledge, which rely on explicit, voluntary access. Priming results are important for two main reasons: First, normal priming results may be observed in patients who perform poorly on other semantic memory tests, enabling us to distinguish between loss of, or damage to, information in semantic memory, and voluntary access to that information. Second, we can investigate the detailed pattern of loss and preservation of different types of semantic information, by charting the priming effects for different kinds of words, and different kinds of semantic relations between primes and targets.

We discuss the use of the priming task in this context, and address some of the theoretical and methodological criticisms that have been raised in connection with use of the priming task to address these issues. We then describe two recent studies in which we have employed semantic priming tasks, along with other more traditional methods, to investigate specific questions about the semantic memory deficits of three patients.     

Object specificity and personal relevance in long-term visual remembering

The personal relevance of an object is multi-faceted, each facet being capable of contributing to the effects on object memory attributed to personal relevance. An object's status as an individual object (object specificity), rather than just a category of object, is one such facet and its impact on the long-term visual remembering of everyday objects is assessed in two experiments. Images and drawings were produced under generic (e.g., “Please draw a bed”) and personal exemplar (e.g., “Please draw your bed”) instructions, and participants indicated the degree to which the image on which their drawing was based was of a specific object or a generic object. Object specificity induced a sense of time and place for a remembered object, the most recent encounter with the object being most salient. Other aspects of personal relevance collectively facilitated the retrieval of an object's category-irrelevant features (thereby increasing the vividness of the object image), the other objects with which it was seen, and a more general episodic sense of place. Against a broader theoretical perspective, it is proposed that visual episodic memory and visual knowledge are primary sources of information for specific personally relevant objects and generic objects, respectively.     

Updating: A psychologically basic situation of probability revision

The Bayesian model has been used in psychology as the standard reference for the study of probability revision. In the first part of this paper we show that this traditional choice restricts the scope of the experimental investigation of revision to a stable universe. This is the case of a situation that, technically, is known as focusing. We argue that it is essential for a better understanding of human probability revision to consider another situation called updating (Katsuno & Mendelzon, 1992 Katsuno, A. and Mendelzon, A. 1992. “On the difference between updating a knowledge base and revising it”. In Belief revision, Edited by: Gärdenfors, P. 183–203. Cambridge, , UK: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), in which the universe is evolving. In that case the structure of the universe has definitely been transformed and the revision message conveys information on the resulting universe. The second part of the paper presents four experiments based on the Monty Hall puzzle that aim to show that updating is a natural frame for individuals to revise their beliefs.     

Twelve steps to heaven: Successfully managing change through developing innovative teams

In this article we propose that work teams implement many of the innovative changes required to enable organizations to respond appropriately to the external environment. We describe how, using an input?–?process?–?output model, we can identify the key elements necessary for developing team innovation. We propose that it is the implementation of ideas rather than their development that is crucial for enabling organizational change. Drawing on theory and relevant research, 12 steps to developing innovative teams are described covering key aspects of the team task, team composition, organizational context, and team processes.     

The clustering of health-related occupational stressors among contemporary wage-earners

In this study, it is investigated whether a typology can be imposed upon a sample of wage-earners, based on their exposure to a broad number of occupational stressors: quantitative, emotional, and physical demands, repetitive movements, atypical schedules, low job control, relationships with superiors, job insecurity, and bullying behaviour. Also associations between this typology and measures of emotional problems (EP) and musculoskeletal complaints (MC) are tested. Logistic regression and a latent class cluster analysis are performed on a representative sample of 10,074 Flemish (Belgian) employees. Five clusters are revealed: “low stress”, “high stress”, “manual-passive”, “human contact”, and “high demand”. These clusters are showing a clear socioeconomic distribution and distinct associations with EP and MC—with the “high stress cluster” being the most problematic. Health-damaging occupational stress clusters are prevalent at both higher and lower socioeconomic positions. This is suggesting a complex relationship between occupational stressors and socioeconomic health variations.     

The Demand–Control model and target's reports of bullying at work: A test within Spanish and Belgian blue-collar workers

The present study explores whether Karasek's Job Demand–Control (JDC) model's strain hypothesis can be applied to target's reports of bullying at work in matched samples of Spanish and Belgian blue-collar workers. In the Spanish sample, results reveal a positive main effect of workload and a negative main effect of autonomy. The relationship between workload and bullying is particularly strong under the condition of low autonomy (i.e., interaction), in line with Karasek's strain hypothesis. In the Belgian sample, results show a positive main effect of workload and a significant workload–autonomy interaction effect in accordance with the strain hypothesis. In sum, high strain jobs associate with target's reports of bullying in both the Spanish and Belgian sample. Karasek's JDC model may accordingly be extended to target's reports of bullying as a form of social behavioural strain. These findings furthermore enhance research in the realm of bullying at work by introducing a well-established theoretical framework to account for the relationship between workload, autonomy, and target's reports of bullying.     

The Canberra Longitudinal Study: Design,Aims, Methodology,Outcomes and Recent Empirical Investigations

The first section of this paper describes methodology and major cognitive outcomes of the Canberra Longitudinal Study (CLS). This community study of 1045 Australians aged 70 years or over commenced in 1990. Participants were reassessed on three subsequent occasions. Its major themes were investigations of prevalence of dementia and depression, risk factors, inter-individual variability and instrument development. Over 60 papers arising from the study have been published.

The second section of this paper describes the use of a Factor of Curves (FOC) latent growth model to examine the existence of a common factor responsible for age-related deterioration in cognitive and non-cognitive processes. This analysis is a logical progression in a series of investigations using the Canberra Longitudinal Study into risk factors and correlates of cognitive change using structural equation modeling techniques. The FOC model is described and is used to explore the nature of an hypothesized common factor and to determine its relationship with age, gender, education, pre-morbid intelligence and to the ApoE genotype. Latent growth models were developed for each of reaction time, Symbol Letter Modalities Test (SLMT), Grip strength, self-reported Sensory disability and memory from three waves of data. Second-order latent level slope factors were established based on the individual factor growth curve models. Although a common factor model could be fitted to the data, there is little support that it represents a single common cause.     

Making use of the vignette technique to examine methods of bereavement counselling: An exploratory study

Aim: The principal objective of this small‐scale study was to examine methods of bereavement counselling because of their lack of clarity. Method: The study made use of the vignette technique along with six semi‐structured interviews analysed by means of thematic analysis. Findings: Results showed that bereavement counsellors are using a multitude of different and diverse methods of counselling, characteristic of postmodernism. Advantages of these postmodern methods are that bereavement counselling methods are rich, creative, supportive, pluralistic and attentive to otherness. However, disadvantages of these postmodern methods have led to a lack of consensus amongst experts, unclear methods and an anti‐methodological way of working by counsellors. Implications for practice: Postmodernism is inherent in bereavement counselling. As a result no two counsellors work in exactly the same way because of the difference in their background and experience similarly it can be said that no one counselling method has exclusivity due to the diverse nature of postmodernism.     

Further Evidence for Nonspecificity of Theory of Mind in Preschoolers: Training and Transferability in the Understanding of False Beliefs and False Signs

In a training study, the authors addressed whether or not preschoolers' difficulty with false belief is due to a domain-specific problem with mental states. Following Slaughter's (1998 Slaughter , V. ( 1998 ). Children's understanding of pictorial and mental representations . Child Development , 69 , 321 – 332 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) design, 57 children who failed a false-belief (FB) pretest received two sessions of training on either an FB, false sign (FS), or control task. All children were then posttested on theory-of-mind, FS, and control tasks. Results showed the FB and FS tasks were not only empirically tested as equivalent but also potentially transferable (i.e., FB training enhanced FS posttest performance, and FS training contributed to the understanding of one's own false belief), suggesting that understanding of false beliefs is an ability of representational understanding that is not restricted to mental states.