Modeling change in memory performance and memory perceptions: findings from the ACTIVE study

Within the context of the ACTIVE study, the current investigation explored the relationships between objective memory and two components of subjective memory (frequency of forgetting and use of external aids) over a five-year period. Relationships were assessed using parallel process latent growth curve models. Results indicated that changes in objective memory were associated with changes in perceived frequency of forgetting, but not with use of external aids (calendars, reminder notes) over time. Findings suggest that memory complaints may accurately reflect decline in objective memory performance, but that these memory changes are not necessarily related to compensatory behaviors.     

Discrimination History,Backlash Fear,and Ethnic Identity Among Arab Americans: Post‐9/11 Snapshots

The authors examined discrimination history, backlash fear, and ethnic identity of Arab Americans nationally at 3 times, beginning shortly after September 11, 2001. Relations between variables were moderate, and discrimination history and backlash fear were statistically significant predictors of ethnic identity. Implications for acculturation and ethnic identity are discussed. Los autores examinaron la historia de la discriminación, el miedo a las reacciones violentas, y la identidad étnica de individuos Americanos de origen Árabe a nivel nacional en 3 momentos distintos, comenzando poco tiempo después del 11 de Septiembre de 2001. Las relaciones entre las variables fueron moderadas, y la historia de la discriminación y el miedo a las reacciones violentas pronosticaron con una fiabilidad estadísticamente significativa el nivel de identidad étnica. Se discuten las implicaciones para la aculturación y la identidad étnica.     

Deceived and distorted: game outcome retrospectively determines the reported time of action

Previous work suggested the association between intentionality and the reported time of action was exclusive, with intentionality as the primary facilitator to the mental time compression between the reported time of action and its effect (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002). In three experiments, we examined whether mental time compression could also be observed in an unintended action. Participants performed an externally cued key press task that elicited one of two possible tones. The reported time of action shifted closer to the tone when the tone was used to indicate the winner of a race (Exp.2) compared to when the tone was meaningless and did not indicate winning (Exp.1). This suggests that reported time of an unintended action could shift toward the effect in some contexts. Furthermore, the results from Exp.2 and Exp.3 (tones were substituted with verbal feedback) showed that a presumed winning action was judged to occur earlier whereas a presumed losing action was judged to be later. These findings therefore support the view that the reported time of action is reconstructed from known temporal information rather than determined by intentionality.     

Relationships among individualism--collectivism, gender, and ingroup/outgroup status, and responses to conflict: a study in China and the United States

Responses to conflict were studied in samples of college students from a highly collectivistic society (China, n = 207) and a highly individualistic society (United States n = 209). As predicted, the collectivistic society reported more conflict-reducing behaviors and less verbal or physical aggression. However, the effect of individualism/collectivism was moderated by both the ingroup/outgroup status of the target and gender of the participant. Chinese and US women did not differ on any measure. However, of the four groups, Chinese men reported the most conflict-reducing behaviors and the least physical aggression, whereas US men reported the fewest conflict-reducing behaviors and the greatest physical aggression. As predicted, conflict-reducing behaviors were more common in the ingroup condition and both verbal and physical aggression was more common in the outgroup condition. However, the latter were moderated by gender of the participant. US men reported greater physical aggression than any other group. Neither gender nor society had any effect on the level of indirect aggression. There were no gender or individualism/collectivism effects on indirect aggression. Observed gender effects were attributed to differences in how collectivistic and individualistic societies conceptualize masculinity. The effect sizes associated with the ingroup/outgroup condition were consistently and substantially larger than effect sizes associated with individualism/collectivism or gender.     

Taking a hands-on approach: apparent grasping ability scales the perception of object size

We examined whether the apparent size of an object is scaled to the morphology of the relevant body part with which one intends to act on it. To be specific, we tested if the visually perceived size of graspable objects is scaled to the extent of apparent grasping ability for the individual. Previous research has shown that right-handed individuals perceive their right hand as larger and capable of grasping larger objects than their left. In the first 2 experiments, we found that objects looked smaller when placed in or judged relative to their right hand compared to their left. In the third experiment, we directly manipulated apparent hand size by magnifying the participants' hands. Participants perceived objects to be smaller when their hand was magnified than when their hand was unmagnified. We interpret these results as demonstrating that perceivers use the extent of their hands' grasping abilities as "perceptual rulers" to scale the apparent size of graspable objects. Furthermore, hand size manipulations did not affect the perceived size of objects too big to be grasped, which suggests that hand size is only used as a scaling mechanism when the object affords the relevant action, in this case, grasping.     

Stereotype threat and female communication styles

A large body of research has documented the performance-debilitating effects of stereotype threat for individuals, but there is a paucity of research exploring interpersonal consequences of stereotype threat. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that stereotype threat would change the style in which women communicate. Results indicate that women who experience stereotype threat regarding leadership abilities react against the stereotype by adopting a more masculine communication style. Study 2 provides evidence that self-affirmation eliminates this effect of stereotype threat on women's communication styles. A third study demonstrates an ironic consequence of this effect of stereotype threat on women's communication--when women under stereotype threat adopt a more masculine communication style, they are rated as less warm and likeable, and evaluators indicate less willingness to comply with their requests. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Sleep spectral power correlates of prospective memory maintenance

Prospective memory involves setting an intention to act that is maintained over time and executed when appropriate. Slow wave sleep (SWS) has been implicated in maintaining prospective memories, although which SWS oscillations most benefit this memory type remains unclear. Here, we investigated SWS spectral power correlates of prospective memory. Healthy young adult participants completed three ongoing tasks in the morning or evening. They were then given the prospective memory instruction to remember to press “Q” when viewing the words “horse” or “table” when repeating the ongoing task after a 12-h delay including overnight, polysomnographically recorded sleep or continued daytime wakefulness. Spectral power analysis was performed on recorded sleep EEG. Two additional groups were tested in the morning or evening only, serving as time-of-day controls. Participants who slept demonstrated superior prospective memory compared with those who remained awake, an effect not attributable to time-of-day of testing. Contrary to prior work, prospective memory was negatively associated with SWS. Furthermore, significant increases in spectral power in the delta-theta frequency range (1.56 Hz–6.84 Hz) during SWS was observed in participants who failed to execute the prospective memory instructions. Although sleep benefits prospective memory maintenance, this benefit may be compromised if SWS is enriched with delta–theta activity.

Prospective memory refers to the maintenance, retrieval, and execution of a previously formed intention (Einstein and McDaniel 1990). Successful prospective memory is essential for a large number of tasks in daily life, such as remembering to attend a doctor''s appointment, to pick up a prescribed medication after that appointment, and to also pick up other needed items (e.g., groceries) while at the drugstore. The above described hypothetical sequence of events integrates previously studied prospective memory variants including time-based (i.e., maintaining a memory to complete an intention at a prespecified time; e.g., Esposito et al. 2015; Occhionero et al. 2017), activity-based (i.e., maintaining a memory to perform an intention before or after a particular activity; e.g., Occhionero et al. 2020), and cue-based (i.e., relying on external cues to prompt a maintained memory for a set intention; e.g., Scullin and McDaniel 2010; Leong et al. 2019b; Scullin et al. 2019).When it is required that memories be maintained across longer periods of time, prospective memory may become less reliable unless sleep occurs (Scullin and McDaniel 2010; Diekelmann et al. 2013a,b; Grundgeiger et al. 2014; Leong et al. 2019a,b; Scullin et al. 2019). Sleep appears to most strongly aid spontaneous retrieval of cue-based prospective memories (Leong et al. 2019a). Several reports have found that slow wave sleep (SWS) supports spontaneous retrieval of cue-based prospective memory intentions (e.g., Diekelmann et al. 2013a; Leong et al. 2019b), although at least one study found an association with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep instead (Scullin et al. 2019). Cue-based prospective memory is hypothesized to be a type of associative memory that binds prospective components (the prospective memory cue) and retrospective components (maintenance of the memory for the prospective memory intention when presented with the cue; Diekelmann et al. 2013b; Leong et al. 2019a).Rodent and human literature, implementing a variety of invasive and noninvasive brain imaging techniques, show that cortical slow oscillations (SOs; <1 Hz) and fast thalamocortical sleep spindles during SWS facilitate associative memory retention (Niknazar et al. 2015; Latchoumane et al. 2017; Helfrich et al. 2018; Mikutta et al. 2019; Muehlroth et al. 2019), whereas faster oscillations, such as those in the theta frequency band (∼4–7 Hz), may inhibit declarative associative memory (Marshall et al. 2011). We therefore hypothesize that prospective memory performance, like other studied associative memory variants, should benefit from oscillations during SWS (Klinzing et al. 2019). However, it remains unknown which SWS microarchitectural features may facilitate or inhibit prospective memory performance.Here, we aimed to first replicate prior findings that prospective memories are better maintained across a 12-h interval including sleep compared with an equivalent interval of wakefulness (e.g., Scullin and McDaniel 2010). We next explored whether sleep-associated memory maintenance might be linked to SWS microarchitectural features. To our knowledge, this is the first experiment to examine whether SWS oscillations differentiate successful from unsuccessful prospective memory performance. Given the role of hippocampal engagement in both associative memory binding (e.g., Yonelinas et al. 2019) and oscillatory coupling during SWS that supports associative memory (Niknazar et al. 2015; Latchoumane et al. 2017; Helfrich et al. 2018; Mikutta et al. 2019; Muehlroth et al. 2019), we hypothesized that prospective memory performance would be supported by SWS and specifically SOs and sleep spindle activity.     

Relation of Maternal Role Concepts to Parenting, Employment Choices, and Life Satisfaction Among Japanese Women

Japanese women are often described as heavily invested in the role of mother, yet young women in contemporary Japan are increasingly likely to postpone or opt out of marriage and child rearing. To understand the psychological dynamics of parenting among Japanese women who have chosen to become mothers, we examined the relation of maternal role salience beliefs, personal maternal role commitment, and parenting self-efficacy to life satisfaction, number of children, and employment status. Survey data were obtained from 116 urban Japanese women with children in the 2nd grade. Mothers with more children expressed greater personal role commitment. Those who had sought employment were less likely to hold strong maternal role salience beliefs. Life satisfaction was predicted by having more children, feeling efficacious as a parent, and being employed. These findings suggest that even in a society characterized by strong normative expectations for women, women's life satisfaction and choices about family life and employment are related to individual beliefs, attitudes, and judgments about their role.     

Assessing Couple Therapy as a Treatment for Individual Distress: When is Referral to Couple Therapy Contraindicated?

In order to better understand the effects of initial level of psychological disturbance on treatment outcome, a retrospective case control study of 95 couples who received couple therapy was conducted by sorting couples into one of four groups based on the degree of distress reported by individuals at intake: Neither distressed; both distressed; male distressed, female not distressed; female distressed, male not distressed. When partners started treatment with similar levels of disturbance both responded well in couple therapy. However, if the female reported clinical levels of disturbance at intake but her partner did not, outcome for the female was especially poor in contrast to outcomes for females receiving individual therapy. Clinically disturbed males showed significant gains in treatment even when their partners were not disturbed. These suggestive results argue for the possible value of conducting controlled studies of treatment assignment decisions that maximize positive outcomes.