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.     

Effects of incidental positive emotion and cognitive reappraisal on affective responses to negative stimuli

Previous studies have identified two powerful ways to regulate emotional responses to a stressor: experiencing incidental positive emotions and using cognitive reappraisal to reframe the stressor. Several cognitive and motivational theories of positive emotion support the formulation that incidental positive emotions may facilitate cognitive reappraisal. To test the separate and interacting effects of positive emotions and cognitive reappraisal, we first adapted an established picture-based reappraisal paradigm by interspersing blocks of positive emotion inducing and neutral pictures. Across two pre-registered studies (Studies 1, 2), reappraisal effectively decreased self-reported negative emotions and increased self-reported positive emotions; however, experiencing incidental positive emotions did not facilitate reappraisal success. In another preregistered study (Study 3), we employed a more powerful positive emotion induction via virtual reality (VR), used a social stress anticipation task, and instructed participants to reappraise the anticipated stressor positively. Although there was a robust effect of the positive emotion induction (relative to the neutral induction) on feeling more positive emotions throughout stress anticipation, the results again indicated that incidental positive emotions did not facilitate cognitive reappraisal. We propose that incidental positive emotions and cognitive reappraisal may constitute separate pathways of influence when regulating one's responses to negative events.     

A qualitative analysis of the vaccine intention–behaviour relationship: parents’ descriptions of their intentions,decision-making behaviour and planning processes towards HPV vaccination

Objective: The objective of this study is to identify factors influencing the vaccine intention–behaviour relationship. Design: A total of 445 parents who received a brief intervention to promote HPV vaccination were categorized based on their intentions post-intervention (yes/unsure/eventually/never) and subsequent adolescents’ vaccine status (yes/no). Fifty-one of these parents participated in qualitative interviews. Main Outcome Measures: Parents described their intentions, decision-making and planning processes towards vaccination. Framework analysis was used to analyse the data. Results: Parents in the ‘Yes/Yes’ category were knowledgeable about HPV/vaccine, described strong, stable intentions, considered themselves the primary decision-makers about vaccination and said they vaccinated immediately. ‘Yes/No’ parents described strong intentions and thought their adolescent was vaccinated OR described hesitant intentions, seeking advice/agreement from others and noting barriers to vaccination without solutions. ‘Unsure/Yes’ parents described their intentions as strengthening with information from credible sources and identified strategies for overcoming barriers. ‘Unsure/No’ and ‘Eventually/No’ parents had misinformation/negative beliefs regarding vaccination, described being ambivalent or non-supportive of vaccination and cited barriers to vaccination. ‘Never/No’ parents held negative beliefs about vaccination, described strong, stable intentions to NOT vaccinate, deferring the decision to others, and reported no planning towards vaccination. Conclusions: Intention characteristics and planning processes could moderate the vaccine intention–behaviour relationship, potentially serving as targets for future vaccine strategies.     

Parent‐implemented treatment for automatically maintained stereotypy

Automatically maintained stereotypy is common among children with autism spectrum disorder. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a multicomponent parent‐implemented intervention on the reduction of motor stereotypy for a child with autism. A 2‐year‐old child and her father participated in this study. The effect of a parent‐implemented intervention was evaluated using an alternating treatment design. The results indicated that the parent‐implemented treatment package including differential reinforcement, response blocking, and a competing stimulus decreased automatically maintained motor stereotypy.     

Brain lateralization of phonological awareness varies by maternal education

Socioeconomic status (SES) has been shown to influence language skills, with children of lower SES backgrounds performing worse on language assessments compared to their higher SES peers. While there is abundant behavioral research on the effects of SES, whether there are differences in the neural mechanisms used to support language skill is less established. In this study, we examined the relation between maternal education (ME), a component of SES, and neural mechanisms of language. We focused on Kindergarten children, at the beginning of formal reading education, and on a pre‐reading skill, phonological awareness—the ability to distinguish or manipulate the sounds of language. We determined ME‐related differences in neural activity by examining a skill‐matched sample of typically achieving 5‐year‐old children as they performed a rhyme judgment task. We examined brain lateralization in two language processing regions, the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and superior temporal gyrus (STG). In the IFG, lateralization was related to ME but not skill: children with low ME showed bilateral activation compared to children with higher ME who showed leftward lateralization. In the STG, there was a skill by ME interaction on lateralization, such that children with high ME showed a positive relation between rightward lateralization and skill and children with low ME showed a positive relation between leftward lateralization and skill. Thus, we demonstrated ME is related to differences in neural recruitment during language processing, yet this difference in recruitment is not indicative of a deficit in linguistic processing in Kindergarten children.     

Scientific Integrity Principles and Best Practices: Recommendations from a Scientific Integrity Consortium

Science and Engineering Ethics - A Scientific Integrity Consortium developed a set of recommended principles and best practices that can be used broadly across scientific disciplines as a mechanism...     

Applied conversation analysis for counselling and psychotherapy researchers

Applied Conversation Analysis (CA) is broadly accepted to be a qualitative methodological approach associated with the discursive turn. Although some argue for a distinct observational science paradigm, the current methodological dichotomy positions this work under the qualitative rubric. Applied CA focuses on the sequential design of social interaction, examining language and meaning within institutional settings. It emphasises informing practice and provides a useful form of evidence for therapists and counsellors, as the work is grounded in real‐world therapeutic practices. In therapy, language and talk are fundamental to the process and outcomes. Studying therapeutic social interaction through Applied CA can illuminate processes, improve practice, and utilise best practice to inform care. The focus of this article is our perspective on the value of Applied CA as a form of evidence in counselling and psychotherapy, and to encourage partnership working between academics and clinicians working in the field.     

On memory,nostalgia, and the temporal expression of Josquin’s Ave Maria… virgo serena

Continental Philosophy Review - I draw upon Edmund Husserl’s classic text, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893–1917), in order to reframe some of his...