The missing link? Testing a schema account of unitization

Unitization refers to the creation of a new unit from previously distinct items. The concept of unitization has been used to explain how novel pairings between items can be remembered without requiring recollection, by virtue of new, item-like representations that enable familiarity-based retrieval. We tested an alternative account of unitization – a schema account – which suggests that associations between items can be rapidly assimilated into a schema. We used a common operationalization of “unitization” as the difference between two unrelated words being linked by a definition, relative to two words being linked by a sentence, during an initial study phase. During the following relearning phase, a studied word was re-paired with a new word, either related or unrelated to the original associate from study. In a final test phase, memory for the relearned associations was tested. We hypothesized that, if unitized representations act like schemas, then we would observe some generalization to related words, such that memory would be better in the definition than sentence condition for related words, but not for unrelated words. Contrary to the schema hypothesis, evidence favored the null hypothesis of no difference between definition and sentence conditions for related words (Experiment 1), even when each cue was associated with multiple associates, indicating that the associations can be generalized (Experiment 2), or when the schematic information was explicitly re-activated during Relearning (Experiment 3). These results suggest that unitized associations do not generalize to accommodate new information, and therefore provide evidence against the schema account.     

WHAT MAKES A QUANTUM PHYSICS BELIEF BELIEVABLE? MANY-WORLDS AMONG SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST

An extraordinary, if circumscribed, positive shift has occurred since the mid-twentieth century in the perceived status of Hugh Everett III's 1956 theory of the universal wave function of quantum mechanics, now widely called the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI). Everett's starkly new interpretation denied the existence of a separate classical realm, contending that the experimental data can be seen as presenting a state vector for the whole universe. Since there is no state vector collapse, reality as a whole is strictly deterministic. Explained jointly by the dynamical variables and the state vector, “this reality is not the reality we customarily think of, but is a reality composed of many worlds,” wrote Everett's colleague Bryce DeWitt. In this essay, I account briefly for the change of status in conventional scientific terms, yet chiefly in extended terms of three sets of ideas that I argue can be understood to affect believability in both scientific and religious contexts, illuminating helpfully the MWI phenomenon, and its engagement with theology: orthodoxy and heresy, language and reference, and faith and agnosticism. One's orientation relative to the variable content of these dynamic, socially oriented categories helps to make belief in ideas as metaphysically challenging as Everettian Quantum Mechanics, or particular ideas about God, either more or less believable. The categories will have the same function in a theology engaging Everett's theory, and in any theology at all written in a society deeply marked by what I further argue is a subtle, powerful, and pervasive mode of quasi-scientific thinking we can call societal constructive agnosticism, of which anyone doing theology today must be aware.     

Commitment to family roles: effects on managers' attitudes and performance

The authors tested the premise that family role commitment (i.e., marital role commitment, parental role commitment) has simultaneous negative and positive effects on managers' (N = 346) life satisfaction, career satisfaction, and performance through family-to-work interference and enhancement. The authors also explored whether psychological strain mediates the effects of interference and enhancement on outcomes. The authors expected family role commitment to reduce the favorability of outcomes by increasing interference. To the contrary, they found that neither marital nor parental role commitment was associated with increased interference. The authors expected family role commitment to improve outcomes by increasing enhancement. As expected, marital role commitment was associated with increased enhancement, which, in turn, seemed to reduce strain and strengthen outcomes. Parental role commitment was also associated with increased enhancement. However, parental role commitment had direct positive effects on outcomes that were more substantial than its indirect effects through enhancement. Overall, marital and parental role commitment had more benefits than costs.     

Monocular deprivation in adult mice alters visual acuity and single-unit activity

It has been discovered recently that monocular deprivation in young adult mice induces ocular dominance plasticity (ODP). This contradicts the traditional belief that ODP is restricted to a juvenile critical period. However, questions remain. ODP of young adults has been observed only using methods that are indirectly related to vision, and the plasticity of young adults appears diminished in comparison with juveniles. Therefore, we asked whether the newly discovered adult ODP broadly reflects plasticity of visual cortical function and whether it persists into full maturity. Single-unit activity is the standard physiological marker of visual cortical function. Using a more optimized protocol for recording single-units, we find evidence of adult ODP of single-units and show that it is most pronounced in deep cortical layers. Furthermore, using visual evoked potentials (VEP), we find that ODP is equally robust in young adults and mature adults and is observable after just one day of monocular deprivation. Finally, we find that monocular deprivation in adults changes spatial frequency thresholds of the VEP, decreasing the acuity of the deprived pathway and improving the acuity of the non-deprived pathway. Thus, in mice, the primary visual cortex is capable of remarkable adaptation throughout life.     

The Myth of Gender Cultures: Similarities Outweigh Differences in Men's and Women's Provision of and Responses to Supportive Communication

Michaud and Warner (1997) and Basow and Rubenfeld (2003) recently reported studies of gender differences in “troubles talk” that allegedly provide support for the different cultures thesis, that is, the notion that men and women communicate in such different ways that they should be regarded as members of different communication cultures or speech communities. In this article, we identify several limitations in these two studies that, collectively, have the effect of casting doubt on their conclusions. We then report three studies that show that men and women provide and respond to supportive messages (“troubles talk”) in ways that are much more similar than different. The current findings, in conjunction with other recent findings, suggest that the different cultures thesis is a myth that should be discarded.     

Millisecond timing on the IBM PC/XT/AT and PS/2: A review of the options and corrections for the Graves and Bradley algorithm

Eleven methods of obtaining millisecond timing on the IBM microcomputer family are briefly reviewed. In our view, the approach recommended by Smith and Puckett (1984) has the fewest limitations, but it must be modified to prevent rare, yet unacceptable, errors. The modified algorithm has been presented for Turbo Pascal, C, and in the present paper, for BASIC and QuickBASIC.     

Self-determination at work: Understanding the role of leader-member exchange

Integrating self-determination theory (SDT) and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, we explore the role of the leader in facilitating employee self-determination. We test a model of the linkages between employees’ leader-member exchanges, psychological need satisfaction (i.e., satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs), autonomous motivation, and attitudinal outcomes. We posit that high-quality leader-member exchanges facilitate satisfaction of employees’ fundamental psychological needs, which, in turn, enhance autonomous motivation and outcomes. Results for 283 working professionals supported this notion. Structural equation modeling indicated that the employee’s perception of the quality of the LMX was positively related to satisfaction of the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Satisfaction of competence and autonomy needs was positively related to autonomous motivation, which, in turn, was associated with higher levels of job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and subjective vitality. Our findings accentuate the role of leader-employee relationships in creating self-determination at work, and reinforce the importance of self-determination for employee attitudes and well-being. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Executive functioning as a mediator of the relationship between age and episodic memory in healthy aging

The extent to which age-related differences in executive functioning account for age-related differences in recall from episodic memory was examined in a group of healthy older adults. Fifty-one subjects between the ages of 60 and 91 years were given tests of general cognitive abilities, episodic memory, and executive functioning. A mediational model was proposed with executive functioning as the mediator of the relationship between age and delayed recall. Consistent with this model, regression analyses indicated that, when considered alone, age was a significant predictor of recall (p <.001); however, age was not a significant predictor of recall when the effect of executive functioning was partialled out of the equation (p=.37). Furthermore, the unique contribution of executive functioning accounted for 36% of the variance in recall performance. A significant portion of age-related differences in episodic memory recall, therefore, may be due to age-related differences in the executive skills required for optimal performance on such tests.     

Social cognitive theory and cancer patients' quality of life: a meta-analysis of psychosocial intervention components.

Social cognitive theory (SC) provides a theoretical framework to evaluate improved quality-of-life (QOL) outcomes through interventions with cancer patients To assess whether inclusion of SCT components predicted better outcomes, focused comparisons were used to integrate results from 38 randomized studies. Interventions with more SCT components had significantly larger effect sizes than studies with fewer or no SCT components for the overall analysis (Z = 3.72, p < .01). Subanalyses of affective, social, objective physical outcome, and specific QOL measures revealed that SCT-based interventions had significantly higher effect sizes; inclusion of SCT components resulted in significantly lower effect sizes on subjective physical and functional outcomes. Results suggest that using SCT-based interventions maximizes improvement in overall QOL outcomes for adult cancer patients.     

Hippocampal involvement in spatial and working memory: a structural MRI analysis of patients with unilateral mesial temporal lobe sclerosis.

Forty-seven patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) were investigated on the Nine-Box Maze. The task was designed to compare working memory and spatial mapping theories of the functions of the hippocampus and provide measures of spatial, object, working, and reference memory. The results extended our previous findings in a larger group of patients. Spatial memory deficits across both working and reference memory conditions were found in patients with a right epileptogenic focus. There was no evidence of an object working memory deficit, but a nonlateralized impairment in object reference memory was revealed, which is consistent with our previous findings. The pattern of results was confirmed in a subgroup of 33 patients with unilateral atrophy localized to the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus, as verified by volumetric analysis of magnetic resonance images. In addition spatial memory errors significantly correlated with volumetric measures of mesial temporal lobe structures and not with measures of the remaining temporal cortex. In contrast, object reference memory errors correlated with volumetric measures of the temporal cortex and not with mesial temporal lobe structures. These findings support a specialized role for the right hippocampal region in spatial memory.