Auditory and visual memory in musicians and nonmusicians

Numerous studies have shown that musicians outperform nonmusicians on a variety of tasks. Here we provide the first evidence that musicians have superior auditory recognition memory for both musical and nonmusical stimuli, compared to nonmusicians. However, this advantage did not generalize to the visual domain. Previously, we showed that auditory recognition memory is inferior to visual recognition memory. Would this be true even for trained musicians? We compared auditory and visual memory in musicians and nonmusicians using familiar music, spoken English, and visual objects. For both groups, memory for the auditory stimuli was inferior to memory for the visual objects. Thus, although considerable musical training is associated with better musical and nonmusical auditory memory, it does not increase the ability to remember sounds to the levels found with visual stimuli. This suggests a fundamental capacity difference between auditory and visual recognition memory, with a persistent advantage for the visual domain.     

Optimal foraging in semantic memory

Do humans search in memory using dynamic local-to-global search strategies similar to those that animals use to forage between patches in space? If so, do their dynamic memory search policies correspond to optimal foraging strategies seen for spatial foraging? Results from a number of fields suggest these possibilities, including the shared structure of the search problems-searching in patchy environments-and recent evidence supporting a domain-general cognitive search process. To investigate these questions directly, we asked participants to recover from memory as many animal names as they could in 3 min. Memory search was modeled over a representation of the semantic search space generated from the BEAGLE memory model of Jones and Mewhort (2007), via a search process similar to models of associative memory search (e.g., Raaijmakers & Shiffrin, 1981). We found evidence for local structure (i.e., patches) in memory search and patch depletion preceding dynamic local-to-global transitions between patches. Dynamic models also significantly outperformed nondynamic models. The timing of dynamic local-to-global transitions was consistent with optimal search policies in space, specifically the marginal value theorem (Charnov, 1976), and participants who were more consistent with this policy recalled more items.     

Religious Networking Organizations and Social Justice: An Ethnographic Case Study

The current study provides an innovative examination of how and why religious networking organizations work for social justice in their local community. Similar to a coalition or community coordinating council, religious networking organizations are formal organizations comprised of individuals from multiple religious congregations who consistently meet to organize around a common goal. Based on over a year and a half of ethnographic participation in two separate religious networking organizations focused on community betterment and social justice, this study reports on the purpose and structure of these organizations, how each used networking to create social capital, and how religion was integrated into the organizations' social justice work. Findings contribute to the growing literature on social capital, empowering community settings, and the unique role of religious settings in promoting social justice. Implications for future research and practice also are discussed.     

Immigration, parasitic infection, and United States religiosity

Fincher & Thornhill (F&T) present a powerful case for the relationship between parasite-stress and religiosity. We argue, however, that the United States may be more religious than can be accounted for by parasite-stress. This greater religiosity might be attributable to greater sensitivity to immigration, which may hyperactivate evolved mechanisms that motivate avoidance of potential carriers of novel parasites.     

BOLD response to semantic and syntactic processing during hypoglycemia is load-dependent

This study investigates how syntactic and semantic load factors impact sentence comprehension and BOLD signal under moderate hypoglycemia. A dual session, whole brain fMRI study was conducted on 16 healthy participants using the glucose clamp technique. In one session, they experienced insulin-induced hypoglycemia (plasma glucose at ∼50 mg/dL); in the other, plasma glucose was maintained at euglycemic levels (∼100 mg/dL). During scans subjects were presented with sentences of contrasting syntactic (embedding vs. conjunction) and semantic (reversibility vs. irreversibility) load. Semantic factors dominated the overall load effects on both performance (p < 0.001) and BOLD response (p < 0.01, corrected). Differential BOLD signal was observed in frontal, temporal, temporo-parietal and medio-temporal regions. Hypoglycemia and syntactic factors significantly impacted performance (p = 0.002) and BOLD response (p < 0.01, corrected) in the reversible clause conditions, more extensively in reversible-embedded than in reversible-conjoined clauses. Hypoglycemia resulted in a robust decrease in performance on reversible clauses and exerted attenuating effects on BOLD unselectively across cortical circuits.The dominance of reversibility in all measures underscores the distinction between the syntactic and semantic contrasts. The syntactic is based in a quantitative difference in algorithms interpreting embedded and conjoined structures. We suggest that the semantic is based in a qualitative difference between algorithmic mapping of arguments in reversible clauses and heuristic linking in irreversible clauses. Because heuristics drastically reduce resource demand, the operations they support would resist the load-dependent cognitive consequences of hypoglycemia.     

Foreign Language Exposure,Cultural Threat,and Opposition to Immigration

In the present article, we extend the notion of cultural threat posed by immigrants beyond its current conceptualization as symbolic, collective‐level threats to American culture and identity. Instead, we argue that routine encounters with non‐English‐speaking immigrants cause many individuals to feel threatened because of real barriers to interpersonal communication and exchange. We draw upon survey and experimental data to demonstrate that local contact with immigrants who speak little to no English, as well as incidental exposure to the Spanish language, heighten feelings of cultural threat, which increases anti‐immigrant sentiment and policy preferences.     

End-of-semester syndrome: How situational regulatory fit affects test performance over an academic semester

Psychology researchers often avoid running participants from subject pools at the end of the semester because they are "unmotivated". We suggest that the end of the semester induces a situational prevention focus (i.e., sensitive to losses) unlike the beginning of the semester, which may induce a situational promotion focus (i.e., sensitive to gains). In two experiments, we presented participants with math problems at the beginning or end of an academic semester. End-of-semester participants performed better minimizing losses as compared to maximizing gains, while the opposite was true for beginning-of-semester participants.     

The influence of indirect and direct emotional processing on memory for facial expressions

We used the remember-know procedure (Tulving, 1985 ) to test the behavioural expression of memory following indirect and direct forms of emotional processing at encoding. Participants (N=32) viewed a series of facial expressions (happy, fearful, angry, and neutral) while performing tasks involving either indirect (gender discrimination) or direct (emotion discrimination) emotion processing. After a delay, participants completed a surprise recognition memory test. Our results revealed that indirect encoding of emotion produced enhanced memory for fearful faces whereas direct encoding of emotion produced enhanced memory for angry faces. In contrast, happy faces were better remembered than neutral faces after both indirect and direct encoding tasks. These findings suggest that fearful and angry faces benefit from a recollective advantage when they are encoded in a way that is consistent with the predictive nature of their threat. We propose that the broad memory advantage for happy faces may reflect a form of cognitive flexibility that is specific to positive emotions.     

Gender and Age Group Differences in Mass Media and Interpersonal Influences on Body Dissatisfaction Among Chinese Adolescents

Despite evidence that middle adolescent girls (ages 14–17) experience more body dissatisfaction than early adolescent girls (ages 10–13) or boys at these ages, researchers have rarely considered whether such differences are observed regarding factors related to body dissatisfaction, particularly within non-Western samples. To address this issue, gender and age group differences in media and interpersonal influences on body dissatisfaction were assessed among early and middle adolescents living in Chongqing, China. In Study 1, 595 boys and 648 girls completed self report measures of demographics, public self-consciousness and appearance-based social pressure, comparisons, and conversations. Compared to boys, girls reported more appearance pressure from mass media and close interpersonal networks (friends, family), appearance comparisons with peers, and appearance conversations with friends; these effects were qualified by interactions with age group, indicating media and interpersonal factors were more prominent in the lives of middle adolescent girls than other groups. Effects were observed independent of body mass index (BMI) and public self-consciousness. In Study 2, 738 girls and 661 boys completed the same measures and a body dissatisfaction scale. By and large, gender and age differences were replicated. Middle adolescent girls also reported more body dissatisfaction than peers did. Perceived appearance pressure from mass media and interpersonal ties were both implicated in mediation analyses to explain this gender × age group effect.     

White Men’s Fears, White Women’s Tears: Examining Gender Differences in Racial Affect Types

This investigation extends research on White students’ affective costs of racism. Consistent with previous research that identified distinct costs of racism (or racial affect) types, the authors used cluster analysis to examine unique patterns in White empathy, guilt, and fear among White undergraduate women (n?=?227) and men (n?=?175) from a large university in the Midwestern United States. Extending prior research and building on conceptual scholarship concerned with intersections of race and gender, the authors separated the sample by gender to determine whether different affective costs of racism types emerged for women and men. The authors found the same five cluster solution for both women and men in the present study, and these solutions were consistent with previous research conducted among combined samples of women and men. Findings suggested that women were significantly more likely than men to be in the most desirable, Antiracist type, compared to the least desirable, Insensitive and Afraid type. Additionally, the authors examined whether support for affirmation action differed by racial affect type for women and men. Partially supporting their hypothesis, the authors found that racial affect types with different levels of White empathy distinguished levels of support for affirmative action among White women. Among White men, the authors found that racial affect types with different levels of White fear explained differing levels of affirmative action support. Implications for future research and diversity education interventions are discussed.