‘Of course I remember seeing that film’—how ambiguous questions generate crashing memories

Although previous research has shown that people are willing to report having seen non‐existent footages of high publicity events, no study has looked at the potential boundaries of what has been dubbed the crashing memory paradigm. We examined whether the ambiguity of interview questions may lead some people to affirm without much conviction having seen non‐existent footages. Using ambiguous, specific high‐suggestive, specific low‐suggestive, or neutral questions, the current study asked 120 individuals whether they had seen non‐existent footage of the assassination of the famous Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. Replicating previous research, 63% of our participants in the ambiguous group falsely reported having seen the footage. This percentage dropped to 30% for the specific high‐suggestive as well as the specific low‐suggestive group, while still 27% of the neutral group were willing to make false reports. Our results demonstrate that crashing memories do depend on the way in which people are interviewed, but that question type does not fully account for these false reports. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“Kiss Your Period Good-Bye”: Menstrual Suppression in the Popular Press

The purpose of this study was to analyze the content of popular press articles about menstrual suppression, a relatively new and controversial health care option. Twenty-two American and Canadian articles, published before the FDA approval of Seasonale, were coded for basic information about and indications for menstrual suppression, viewpoints included, and coverage of risks and benefits. Menstrual suppression was most often recommended for women with menstrual disorders but was also recommended to menstruating women in general as a matter of convenience. Advocates of menstrual suppression were quoted twice as often as opponents. Monthly menstruation was frequently described as messy, inconvenient, bothersome, unhealthy, and unnecessary. From this analysis, we concluded that popular press coverage of menstrual suppression is insufficient and biased. The articles reflect and reinforce the taboo status and medicalization of menstruation. This coverage may have primed potential consumers to anticipate the FDA approval of Seasonale eagerly, to evaluate it uncritically, and to pursue it as a birth control and menstrual health option. Implications for research, health care providers, and menstrual activists are discussed.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the June 2003 meeting of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, Pittsburgh, PA.     

Effectively using death in health messages: Social loss versus physical mortality salience

Research based on the terror management health model demonstrates that highlighting death as a consequence of risky behavior can lead to unintended responses to health communications. In two studies, we investigate whether a form of social loss message frame can motivate someone to change his or her behavior to prevent negative health consequences. In Study 1, we compare social loss and physical mortality print messages in the context of “texting while driving.” Overall, social loss as opposed to physical mortality messages facilitate greater intent to reduce risky health behaviors when death‐related cognitions have been removed from conscious awareness. In Study 2, we manipulate message framing and self‐affirmation in the context of “smoking.” We find that highlighting family members' inability to cope when one dies can result in health messages that facilitate the acknowledgment of the health risk and reduce risky health behaviors. This effect is enhanced when individuals affirm on the importance of “relationships with family and friends” prior to viewing health messages. The implications for the terror management health model are discussed noting that death can be effectively used in health communication when framed as relationship protection rather than one's physical mortality.     

Affective flexibility: evaluative processing goals shape amygdala activity

ABSTRACT— Although early research implicated the amygdala in automatic processing of negative information, more recent research suggests that it plays a more general role in processing the motivational relevance of various stimuli, suggesting that the relation between valence and amygdala activation may depend on contextual goals. This study provides experimental evidence that the relation between valence and amygdala activity is dynamically modulated by evaluative goals. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants evaluated the positive, negative, or overall (positive plus negative) aspects of famous people. When participants were providing overall evaluations, both positive and negative names were associated with amygdala activation. When they were evaluating positivity, positive names were associated with amygdala activity, and when they were evaluating negativity, negative names were associated with amygdala activity. Evidence for a negativity bias was found; modulation was more pronounced for positive than for negative information. These data suggest that the amygdala flexibly processes motivationally relevant evaluative information in accordance with current processing goals, but processes negative information less flexibly than positive information.     

The contents of visual memory are only partly under volitional control

When we look around within a visual scene, is visual information automatically placed in visual memory during each saccade, or can we control which information is retained and which is excluded? We examined this question in five experiments by requiring participants to remember sequentially presented visual shapes or faces—some of which were marked for encoding (targets) and others that were supposed to be ignored (distractors)—over a 1-sec delay. The results show that distractors were retained in visual memory, regardless of stimulus category, suggesting that it is a general phenomenon. Whether or not participants were allowed to prepare for a target or distractor did not modulate distractor intrusion. When attention coupled with eye movements could be used to select targets, distractors were no longer encoded into memory. When eye movements were constrained, distractors once again intruded into memory. These findings suggest that top-down control processes are insufficient to filter the contents of visual memory.     

Sleep directly following learning benefits consolidation of spatial associative memory

The last decade has brought forth convincing evidence for a role of sleep in non-declarative memory. A similar function of sleep in episodic memory is supported by various correlational studies, but direct evidence is limited. Here we show that cued recall of face-location associations is significantly higher following a 12-h retention interval containing sleep than following an equally long period of waking. Furthermore, retention is significantly higher over a 24-h sleep-wake interval than over an equally long wake-sleep interval. This difference occurs because retention during sleep was significantly better when sleep followed learning directly, rather than after a day of waking. These data demonstrate a beneficial effect of sleep on memory that cannot be explained solely as a consequence of reduced interference. Rather, our findings suggest a competitive consolidation process, in which the fate of a memory depends, at least in part, on its relative stability at sleep onset: Strong memories tend to be preserved, while weaker memories erode still further. An important aspect of memory consolidation may thus result from the removal of irrelevant memory "debris."     

The medial temporal lobe and visual working memory: Comparisons across tasks, delays, and visual similarity

Whether the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe (MTL) play any important role in visual working memory is a relatively new and controversial research question. The primary goal of this study was to assess working memory for faces over very short delays in patients with MTL damage. Patients and matched controls were required to remember one face that was parametrically morphed to be more or less similar to a probe face, over either a 1- or an 8-sec delay. Memory was assessed using both forced choice and old-new recognition tasks. The results show that MTL damage impairs both speed and accuracy of visual working memory across tasks. We speculate that the hippocampus is generally necessary for memory encoding.     

Self‐Objectification and Lower Income Pregnant Women's Breastfeeding Attitudes1

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine self‐objectification as a correlate of pregnant women's concerns about public breastfeeding and the impact of breastfeeding on body shape and sexuality. Fifty‐two pregnant women enrolled in the Women, Infants, and Children Program responded to telephone questions regarding concerns about breastfeeding, attitudes toward breastfeeding, and self‐objectification. Women who scored higher on measures of self‐objectification reported more concern about the impact of breastfeeding on their bodies and sexuality and were less comfortable with the idea of breastfeeding in public than were women with lower self‐objectification scores. Self‐objectification was not associated with more negative attitudes toward breastfeeding or weaker intentions to breastfeed. Implications for the promotion of breastfeeding for low‐income women are discussed.     

What Does It Mean to Be Human? A Personal and Catholic Perspective

A philosopher-poet-theologian ponders the implications of the multimillion-year biogenetic process that produced Homo sapiens and is beginning to reveal itself ever more clearly as evolution of the mind and consciousness. As meaning trappers and makers, called to actualize the divine image imprinted upon us, we are now facing biological and cultural evolution with deliberate human input as well as the evolution of evolution. As communicating animals that are becoming ever more aware of our adaptive behavior, we have the potential of affecting our own destiny by listening to the spirit within and nurturing the genes and memes that give rise to physical, intellectual, creative, and moral excellence. In the matrix of cyberspace we have the opportunity to heal the two-culture split, to reinvent ourselves, to incubate/weave the emergent religions of the future, and to create our multiple "Ways" appropriate to the dawning Age of Global Dialogue.     

Gender-Linked Differences in Everyday Memory Performance: Effort Makes the Difference

Previous research has found gender differences in everyday memory tasks such as remembering shopping lists or directions, and these findings can be attributed to increased motivation or memory skill resulting from the association of different tasks with masculine or feminine gender roles. To investigate the motivational explanation, the recall of an ambiguous shopping list, labeled as grocery or hardware, was examined under instructions that stated that either women or men are good at the task, or instructions that were neutral. The findings were not consistent with the skill explanation. There was a significant interaction between list label, participant gender, and instructions, which can be explained in terms of the increased or decreased motivation that might arise from particular combinations of label and instruction.