Recognition memory and awareness: Occurrence of perceptual effects in remembering or in knowing depends on conscious resources at encoding, but not at retrieval

We report four experiments in which a remember-know paradigm was combined with a response deadline procedure in order to assess memory awareness in fast, as compared with slow,recognition judgments. In the experiments, we also investigated the perceptual effects of study-test congruence, either for picture size or for speaker's voice, following either full or divided attention at study. These perceptual effects occurred in remembering with full attention and in knowing with divided attention, but they were uninfluenced by recognition speed, indicating that their occurrence in remembering or knowing depends more on conscious resources at encoding than on those at retrieval. The results have implications for theoretical accounts of remembering and knowing that assume that remembering is more consciously controlled and effortful, whereas knowing is more automatic and faster.     

Speech perception deficits in Parkinson's disease: underestimation of time intervals compromises identification of durational phonetic contrasts

Besides motor, vegetative, and cognitive signs, patients suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD) may show distinct perceptual deficits such as underestimation of time intervals extending across several seconds. Assuming this impairment also to affect the domain of tens of milliseconds, disrupted encoding of the acoustic speech signal with respect to segment durations conveying linguistic information must be expected. To test this hypothesis, 10 PD patients and matched controls performed an identification task using a series of 10 stimuli derived from the utterance "Boten" (/bo:tn/, 'messengers'; produced with nasal plosion) by exclusive manipulation of occlusion length (110-20 ms in steps of 10 ms). Under these conditions, word-medial silence cues the voicing category of the respective stop consonant. Seven PD subjects showed normal identification curves, i.e., categorized the shortest and longest stimuli with high probability each as the minimal pair cognates "Boden" and "Boten," respectively. In contrast, the remaining three patients labeled all items across the complete range of occlusion lengths as "Boden." A subsequent experiment found a horizontal shift of the identification curves toward larger signal durations (> 120 ms) in these three subjects. Bilateral cerebellar degeneration has been found to yield a different response pattern, i.e., near-chance level of performance. Considering recent information-processing models of scalar interval timing, striatal disorders seem to slow down an oscillatory pacemaker, whereas cerebellar dysfunctions may impair comparison of measured durations with stored reference memory traces.     

Addictive buying: causes, processes, and symbolic meanings. Thematic analysis of a buying addict's diary

The aims of this study were twofold. On the one hand, to reach an understanding of, and to illustrate the experience of addictive buying and, on the other, to throw some light on the controversial subject of addicts' personal responsibility for their behavior. With these aims, a thematic analysis of an extensive diary written by a compulsive buyer is presented. Four themes emerge from the analysis: the defining characteristics of addiction to buying that determine the boundary separating it from other forms of impulsive or careless buying; several causal factors; the role that money and material objects play in family relationships and friendships through the symbolic meanings they adopt; and the relationship of personal values with impulsiveness and self-control. In view of the results, the moral model of addiction to buying is discussed, and an explanatory model of the ambivalence that is characteristic of addiction to buying is proposed, based on a personal hierarchy of values.     

Muslim Governance and the Duty to Protect

In this response to Johnson, Oh reaffirms the scholarly vision of Kelsay and Twiss, elaborates upon Muslim perspectives on human rights, and questions the emphasis on violent humanitarian interventions as part of the Responsibility to Protect mandate. Oh suggests that, in light of the historical relationship between Muslim and non‐Muslim states and the aftermath of the second Iraq War, more consideration be given to the rebuilding of Muslim‐majority societies. Oh also highlights the concept of duty as a religiously based ideal to which governments of Muslim nations ought to be held.     

Women Creating Public Art and Community, 2000–2014

This narrative describes a series of 15 short‐term public art projects that were part of a program for women and girls in Lowell, Massachusetts, a mid‐size city in the United States. The projects were designed to give public space to women’s stories and perspectives by exhibiting their creative art in response to suggested themes. A few thousand women and girls representing diverse age and cultural groups created art based on their lived experiences. The organizers of the program met people in comfortable settings, tailored their art‐making approaches to particular groups, and used inclusive processes in developing and executing the program. Program successes and challenges were related to the organizational structure of the art projects, the annual themes and art media, the extent of outreach and support, the process of creation, and the impact of art exhibits. Using community psychology and feminist frameworks, authors reflect on the projects and their relevance across contexts, highlight key organizing strategies, and identify ways the project represents community psychology in action.     

Year-one children thinking about and writing ‘large’ quantities / Niños de primer grado pensando en y anotando cantidades ‘grandes’

Abstract

We studied how year-one children in primary school think about and with numbers when they use verbal expressions and numerical notations to suggest ‘very large’ quantities in different contexts of meaning (tokens, an elderly person’s age, stars). We individually interviewed 63 children from schools in Río Negro, Argentina. The analysis identified the different ways children approached the tension that exists between stability and innovation. Context seems to influence the answers given by many of the children who were interviewed. The results showed five cognitive trajectories: in the first two, children did not demonstrate any innovation in their notations. Children in the remaining trajectories (84% of respondents) conducted a kind of numerical ‘take off’ in at least one of the tasks. Knowledge of the number series does not guarantee an easy approach to writing ‘large’ quantities but it does seem to favour a strategy of greater cognitive flexibility.     

Properties of hypothesis testing techniques and (Bayesian) model selection for exploration‐based and theory‐based (order‐restricted) hypotheses

In this paper, the performance of six types of techniques for comparisons of means is examined. These six emerge from the distinction between the method employed (hypothesis testing, model selection using information criteria, or Bayesian model selection) and the set of hypotheses that is investigated (a classical, exploration‐based set of hypotheses containing equality constraints on the means, or a theory‐based limited set of hypotheses with equality and/or order restrictions). A simulation study is conducted to examine the performance of these techniques. We demonstrate that, if one has specific, a priori specified hypotheses, confirmation (i.e., investigating theory‐based hypotheses) has advantages over exploration (i.e., examining all possible equality‐constrained hypotheses). Furthermore, examining reasonable order‐restricted hypotheses has more power to detect the true effect/non‐null hypothesis than evaluating only equality restrictions. Additionally, when investigating more than one theory‐based hypothesis, model selection is preferred over hypothesis testing. Because of the first two results, we further examine the techniques that are able to evaluate order restrictions in a confirmatory fashion by examining their performance when the homogeneity of variance assumption is violated. Results show that the techniques are robust to heterogeneity when the sample sizes are equal. When the sample sizes are unequal, the performance is affected by heterogeneity. The size and direction of the deviations from the baseline, where there is no heterogeneity, depend on the effect size (of the means) and on the trend in the group variances with respect to the ordering of the group sizes. Importantly, the deviations are less pronounced when the group variances and sizes exhibit the same trend (e.g., are both increasing with group number).     

The relation between off-job recovery and job resources: person-level differences and day-level dynamics

It is well-known that recovery from work and job resources can counteract negative effects of high job demands, but less is known about how off-job recovery and job resources are related to each other. In this two-level daily diary study, 67 employees filled out daily surveys over the course of 8 days to examine this issue. Consistent with our expectations, multilevel analyses revealed that previous day’s detachment from work is positively related to the state of being recovered before going to work, and that the state of being recovered is positively related to one’s level of job resources. Moreover, the results indicated that both person-level differences and day-level dynamics play a role in these relations. Our study highlights the importance of recovering from work in the sense that it does not only help individuals by repairing negative strain effects but can also function as a catalyst in the activation of job resources.