Brief wakeful resting boosts new memories over the long term

A brief wakeful rest after new verbal learning enhances memory for several minutes. In the research reported here, we explored the possibility of extending this rest-induced memory enhancement over much longer periods. Participants were presented with two stories; one story was followed by a 10-min period of wakeful resting, and the other was followed by a 10-min period during which participants played a spot-the-difference game. In Experiment 1, wakeful resting led to significant enhancement of memory after a 15- to 30-min period and also after 7 days. In Experiment 2, this striking enhancement of memory 7 days after learning was demonstrated even when no retrievals were imposed in the interim. The degree to which people can remember prose after 7 days is significantly affected by the cognitive activity that they engage in shortly after new learning takes place. We propose that wakeful resting after new learning allows new memory traces to be consolidated better and hence to be retained for much longer.     

Suicidal Risk in Adolescent Residential Treatment: Being Female Is More Important Than a Depression Diagnosis

We investigated the relationship between gender and clinician diagnosis of a depressive disorder at intake on variables reflecting depression among adolescents in residential treatment. It was hypothesized that females diagnosed with a depressive disorder would have the highest scores on measures of suicide risk, the number of symptoms of a major depressive episode, suicidal behavior, and suicidal ideation. Results indicated partial support for the predicted comparisons. Females diagnosed with a depressive disorder scored significantly higher on measures of depressive symptom count and suicidal ideation. Surprisingly, females without a diagnosis of a depressive disorder had higher suicide risk scores than the remaining groups. The results of this study highlight the importance of assessment and treatment of internalizing disorders in youth entering residential programs, particularly female adolescents.     

Body image concern and selective attention to disgusting and non-self appearance-related stimuli

Although selective attention to one's own appearance has been widely documented in studies of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), little is known about attentional bias toward non-self appearance-related stimuli in BDD. Furthermore, despite reports of heightened experience of disgust in BDD, it is unknown whether these individuals differentially attend to disgusting stimuli and whether disgust is important in processing of unattractive stimuli. We used a dot probe procedure to investigate the relationship between dysmorphic concern, a defining feature of BDD, and selective attention to faces, attractive, unattractive and disgusting images in a female heterosexual student population (N = 92). At the long stimulus presentation (1000 ms), dysmorphic concern was positively associated with attention to faces in general and attractive appearance-related images. In contrast, at the short stimulus presentation (200 ms), there was a positive association between dysmorphic concern and disgusting images. Implications for theoretical models of BDD are discussed.     

Event-related potential evidence for multiple causes of the revelation effect

Asking people to discover the identity of a recognition test probe immediately before making a recognition judgment increases the probability of an old judgment. To inform theories of this "revelation effect," event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded for revealed and intact test items across two experiments. In Experiment 1, we used a revelation effect paradigm where half of the test probes were presented as anagrams (i.e., a related task) and the other items were presented intact. The pattern of ERP results from this experiment suggested that revealing an item decreases initial familiarity levels and caused the revealed items to elicit similar levels of activity. In Experiment 2, half of the probes were preceded by an addition task (i.e., an unrelated task). The pattern of ERP effects in this study were distinct from those observed in Experiment 1. More specifically, revealed item ERPs were more negative than intact ERPs at frontal electrodes and more positive at parietal electrodes early in the interval. Later in the epoch, revealed item ERPs were more negative than intact items. These data suggest that related tasks decrease familiarity and alter the signal-to-noise ratio of old and new items, whereas unrelated tasks affect processing in a different way (perhaps by changing decision processes) that also results in the revelation effect. The implications for current theories of the revelation effect are discussed.     

Ethnic Identity Gratifications Selection and Avoidance by African Americans: A Group Vitality and Social Identity Gratifications Perspective

Abstract

This study explores the relatively new idea that individuals engage with media in an effort to meet their social identity needs. Specifically, the study broadens the social identity gratifications (SIG) approach to the domain of ethnicity by examining how African Americans’ ethnic identity gratifications selection and avoidance are related to their perceptions of ingroup vitality. Two mediation models involving level of ethnic identification are proposed. Although the model of television selection is not supported, the model of television avoidance is supported. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Intersecting Constraints on Label Learning: Effects of Age,Label Properties,and Referential Context

ABSTRACT

This research investigates the development of constraints in word learning. Previous experiments have shown that as infants gain more knowledge of native language structure, they become more selective about the forms that they accept as labels. However, the developmental pattern exhibited depends greatly on the way that infants are introduced to the labels and tested. In a series of experiments, we examined how providing referential context in the form of familiar objects and familiar object names affects how infants learn labels that they would otherwise reject, nonspeech sounds. We found evidence of the development of intersecting constraints: Younger infants (14-month-olds) were more open to learning nonspeech tone labels than older infants (19-month-olds), and younger infants were more open to the influence of referential context. These findings suggest that infants form expectations about labels and labeling contexts as they become more sophisticated learners.     

Changes in Children's Pretend Play Over Two Decades

There is growing recognition that children have less time to engage in play, and, concurrently, recent evidence suggests a decrease in divergent thinking ability in young children. This study investigated changes in pretend play ability during a 23-year period. The same standardized measure of pretend play, the Affect in Play Scale (APS; Russ, 1993 Russ , S. W. ( 1993 ). Affect in creativity: The role of affect and play in the creative process . Hillsdale , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates . [Google Scholar]; 2004 Russ , S. W. ( 2004 ). Play in child development and psychotherapy: Toward empirically supported practice . Mahwah , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers . [Google Scholar]), was the measure of pretend play in all studies. This puppet play task is videotaped and scored from the tapes. Fourteen studies of children from 6 to 10 years of age in school-based samples from 1985–2008 were included in the analyses. A cross-temporal meta-analysis examined correlations between weighted mean scores and year of data collection. Main findings were that imagination in play and comfort with play significantly increased over time. There was no evidence of change in organization of the story or in overall expression of affect in play. When one outlier was removed, there was a significant decrease in negative affect expression in play. Even though children have less time to play, cognitive processes that occur in play are continuing to develop. Whether these pretend abilities are being transferred to creative production is a key question for future investigation.     

A Goodness-of-Fit Approach to Informed Consent for Pediatric Intervention Research

As children and adolescents receive increased research attention, ethical issues related to obtaining informed consent for pediatric intervention research have come into greater focus. In this article, we conceptualize parent permission and child assent within a goodness-of-fit framework that encourages investigators to create consent procedures “fitted” to the research context, the child's cognitive and emotional maturity, and the family system. Drawing on relevant literature and a hypothetical case example, we highlight four factors investigators may consider when constructing consent procedures that best reflect participants' rights, concerns, and well-being: (a) the child's current assent capacity and the likely impact of study information on the child's mental and physical development, (b) parents' understanding of their child's treatment needs and distinctions between treatment and clinical trials research, (c) the family's history of shared decision making, and (d) the child's strivings for autonomy within the context of their parents' duty to make decisions in the child's best interest.