Memory distortions: When suggestions cannot be easily ignored

In the present study, the persistence of personal false memories (FMs) after social feedback that denies their truth was assessed. Participants imitated actions performed by the experimenter (Session 1) and watched a doctored video with performed and critical “fake” actions (Session 2), followed by a memory rating and a recognition task. A few days later (Session 3), participants were clearly told that some memories were false and received daily reminders of the correct list of objects/actions before testing their memory again in Session 4. Results of both memory ratings and recognition indicated effective FM implantation. Interestingly, response times for correct rejections were longer for fake than true objects, suggesting participants struggled to ignore false suggestions. Crucial for our aim, Session 4 showed that FM persisted also after the debriefing and repeated presentations of correct list of objects/actions, suggesting that FMs for actions are rather difficult to discard.     

Does interference between self and other perspectives in theory of mind tasks reflect a common underlying process? Evidence from individual differences in theory of mind and inhibitory control

Theory of mind (ToM), the ability to understand that other agents have different beliefs, desires, and knowledge than oneself, has been extensively researched. Theory of mind tasks involve participants dealing with interference between their self-perspective and another agent’s perspective, and this interference has been related to executive function, particularly to inhibitory control. This study assessed whether there are individual differences in self–other interference, and whether these effects are due to individual differences in executive function. A total of 142 participants completed two ToM (the director task and a Level 1 visual perspective-taking task), which both involve self–other interference, and a battery of inhibitory control tasks. The relationships between the tasks were examined using path analysis. Results showed that the self–other interference effects of the two ToM tasks were dissociable, with individual differences in performance on the ToM tasks being unrelated and performance in each predicted by different inhibitory control tasks. We suggest that self–other differences are part of the nature of ToM tasks, but self–other interference is not a unitary construct. Instead, self–other differences result in interference effects in various ways and at different stages of processing, and these effects may not be a major limiting step for adults’ performance on typical ToM tasks. Further work is needed to assess other factors that may limit adults’ ToM performance and hence explain individual differences in social ability.

     

Correction to: Embodied memories: Reviewing the role of the body in memory processes

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - This paper omitted a reference: Dutriaux, L., & Gyselinck, V. (2016). Learning is better with the hands free: The role of posture in the memory of...     

The adrenergic receptor α-2A gene (ADRA2A) and neuropsychological executive functions as putative endophenotypes for childhood ADHD

There is resurgent interest in the psychiatric literature in endophenotypes, variables thought to more strongly reflect the effects of candidate genes than do manifest disorders. In a sample of 176 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 52 of their siblings, we examined the validity of several putative endophenotypes for ADHD that represent commonly used clinical measures of multiple cognitive/neuropsychological domains of executive functions (EFs). We review their distributional normality, their relations to ADHD symptoms in probands and unaffected siblings relative to nonADHD controls, and their correlation in siblings. We also tested the EF measures’ associations with the ADRA2A gene and whether they mediated or moderated the associations between ADHD and ADRA2A. Several EF measures showed association with ADRA2A, as well as moderation, but not mediation, of its association with ADHD. Implications of the results for evaluating the validity and utility of putative endophenotype measures and for finding candidate gene effects on ADHD are discussed.     

Individual differences in current events knowledge: Contributions of ability,personality, and interests

What accounts for individual differences in the sort of knowledge that people may draw on in everyday cognitive tasks, such as deciding whom to vote for in a presidential election, how to invest money in the stock market, or what team to bet on in a friendly wager? In a large sample of undergraduate students, we investigated correlates of individual differences in recently acquired knowledge of current events in domains such as politics, business, and sports. Structural equation modeling revealed two predictive pathways: one involving cognitive ability factors and the other involving two major nonability factors (personality and interests). The results of this study add to what is known about the sources of individual differences in knowledge and are interpreted in the context of theoretical conceptions of adult intelligence that emphasize the centrality and importance of knowledge (e.g., Ackerman, 1996; Cattell, 1971).     

The role of optimism in social network development, coping, and psychological adjustment during a life transition.

The authors investigated the extent to which social support and coping account for the association between greater optimism and better adjustment to stressful life events. College students of both genders completed measures of perceived stress, depression, friendship network size, and perceived social support at the beginning and end of their 1st semester of college. Coping was assessed at the end of the 1st semester. Greater optimism, assessed at the beginning of the 1st semester of college, was prospectively associated with smaller increases in stress and depression and greater increases in perceived social support (but not in friendship network size) over the course of the 1st semester of college. Mediational analyses were consistent with a model in which increases in social support and greater use of positive reinterpretation and growth contributed to the superior adjustment that optimists experienced.     

Crying threshold and intensity in major depressive disorder

Clinical lore suggests that depression is associated with frequent and intense crying. To test these postulations empirically, a standardized cry-evoking stimulus was presented to depressed and nondepressed participants, and their likelihood of crying and the magnitude of crying-related changes in their emotion experience, behavior, and autonomic physiology were compared. Unexpectedly, crying was no more likely in depressed than in nondepressed participants. Within the nondepressed group, participants who cried exhibited increases in the report and display of sadness and had greater cardiac and electrodermal activation than did participants who did not cry. There was less evidence of this crying-related emotional activation within the depressed group. The lack of emotional activation among clinically depressed participants who cried provides a tantalizing clue concerning how emotions are dysregulated in this disorder.     

It is written all over your face: Socially rejected people display microexpressions that are detectable after training in the Micro Expression Training Tool (METT)

Social rejection is a powerful negative emotional experience, yet rejected people often appear stoic and unmoved. That is, their macroexpressions of emotion are not accurate reflections of their emotional states. Yet, there is reason to believe that rejected people exhibit involuntary microexpressions of negative emotion. We contrasted people's macroexpressions of emotion with their microexpressions subsequent to an acceptance or rejection experience. Observers coded microexpressions after being trained with the Micro Expression Training Tool. Rejected participants expressed more sad and angry microexpressions than did accepted participants. This research demonstrates that socially rejected people display negative microexpressions that are detectable by observers trained in the Micro Expression Training Tool.