Effects of testing on subsequent re‐encoding and long‐term forgetting of action‐relevant materials: On the influence of recall type

Testing one's memory of previously studied information reduces the rate of forgetting, compared to restudy. However, little is known about how this direct testing effect applies to action phrases (e.g., “wash the car”) – a learning material relevant to everyday memory. As action phrases consist of two different components, a verb (e.g., “wash”) and a noun (e.g., “car”), testing can either be implemented as noun‐cued recall of verbs or verb‐cued recall of nouns, which may differently affect later memory performance. In the present study, we investigated the effect of testing for these two recall types, using verbally encoded action phrases as learning materials. Results showed that repeated study–test practice, compared to repeated study–restudy practice, decreased the forgetting rate across 1 week to a similar degree for both noun‐cued and verb‐cued recall types. However, noun‐cued recall of verbs initiated more new subsequent learning during the first restudy, compared to verb‐cued recall of nouns. The study provides evidence that testing has benefits on both subsequent restudy and long‐term retention of action‐relevant materials, but that these benefits are differently expressed with testing via noun‐cued versus verb‐cued recall.     

Women in the National Guard: Experiences with children during deployment

More women of the National Guard and Reserves have deployed to combat zones overseas than ever before. Upon reintegration, these soldiers often face a number of stressors related to their combat zone experiences and readjustment to civilian life. One of these stressors is the reintegration with family, partners, and children. This qualitative study involved interviews with 30 women from the National Guard regarding their reintegration experiences with their children. Four categories were revealed from the data: (a) Concerns for Children’s Well-being, (b) Sense of Loss (c) Reintegration: Personal Challenges, and (d) Reintegration: Children’s Reactions. Implications for clinical work with returning soldiers and further research are discussed.     

Moral Stress in International Humanitarian Aid and Rescue Operations: A Grounded Theory Study

Humanitarian aid professionals frequently encounter situations in which one is conscious of the morally appropriate action but cannot take it because of institutional obstacles. Dilemmas like this are likely to result in a specific kind of stress reaction at the individual level, labeled as moral stress. In our study, 16 individuals working with international humanitarian aid and rescue operations participated in semistructured interviews, analyzed in accordance with a grounded theory approach. A theoretical model of ethical decision making from a moral stress perspective was developed. The practical implications of the study are discussed.     

Predictors of Self-Reported Prospective and Retrospective Memory in a Population-Based Sample of Older Adults

In this article, the authors examined predictors of self-reported everyday memory failures using the Prospective and Retrospective Questionnaire (PRMQ; Smith, Della Sala, Logie, &; Maylor, 2000 Smith, G. V., Della Sala, S., Logie, R. H. and Maylor, E. A. M. 2000. Prospective and retrospective memory in normal ageing and dementia: A questionnaire study. Memory, 8: 311–321. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in a population-based sample of older adults (age range = 60–90 years; N = 250). The results showed that a higher frequency of reported failures was associated with lower scores on the personality dimension of self-directedness as assessed by the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI; Cloninger, Dragan, Svrakic, &; Przybeck, 1993 Cloninger, R. C., Dragan, M. S., Svrakic, D. M. and Przybeck, T. R. 1993. A psychobiological model of temperament and character. Archives of General Psychiatry, 50: 975–990. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and more depressive symptoms on the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977 Radloff, L. S. 1977. The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1: 385–401. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, PRMQ scores showed no relationships with objective memory ability, as reflected by a series of retrospective memory measures and a measure of prospective memory. Neither were the PRMQ scales associated with general cognitive functioning as assessed by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; Folstein, Folstein, &; McHugh, 1977). Taken together, the results indicate that within the older population, self-reported memory as assessed by the PRMQ may reflect mood-state and personality factors rather than individual differences in memory and cognitive ability.     

The mirroring function of the child analyst

This paper follows the progress of four years of twice-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy with a borderline girl aged 4 at the start of treatment. It describes how her early experience with her mother, who was ill, and her subsequent removal from her mother and placement with a foster-family led to her having severe difficulties in relating to others. Using the work of Ekstein as a framework, it follows the changes in the child’s behaviour in the therapy from acting out to playing with toys to role playing to the apparent development of her capacity to phantasize. It focuses on what the dolls’ house represented for her and how it came to be a transitional space where the inner world of the child could be represented. The play in and around the dolls’ house is described to show how she moved from playing on the outside of the dolls’ house to playing in part of the inside to using the whole house and how this seemed to parallel the development of her relationship with her therapist. Furthermore, it presents the views of a number of commentators on the use of the dolls’ house and what it represents for children in therapy and in our culture in general.     

Hierarchical Bayesian parameter estimation for cumulative prospect theory

Cumulative prospect theory (CPT Tversky & Kahneman, 1992) has provided one of the most influential accounts of how people make decisions under risk. CPT is a formal model with parameters that quantify psychological processes such as loss aversion, subjective values of gains and losses, and subjective probabilities. In practical applications of CPT, the model’s parameters are usually estimated using a single-participant maximum likelihood approach. The present study shows the advantages of an alternative, hierarchical Bayesian parameter estimation procedure. Performance of the procedure is illustrated with a parameter recovery study and application to a real data set. The work reveals that without particular constraints on the parameter space, CPT can produce loss aversion without the parameter that has traditionally been associated with loss aversion. In general, the results illustrate that inferences about people’s decision processes can crucially depend on the method used to estimate model parameters.     

Cytokines and memory across the mature life span of women

Increasing evidence suggests a role of the immune system in modulation of cognition, but details on affected memory systems are largely lacking. We therefore aimed to study the relation between selected cytokines and subsets of memory, and the impact of age in these relations. From a random population-based sample (the Betula Prospective Cohort Study), 298 women (age 45-90) were studied in terms of episodic recall and recognition, semantic fluency and knowledge, and prospective memory. Circulating cytokines of relevance for cognition and aging were measured with ELISA. Levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and sIL-2R were significantly and negatively associated with most cognitive variables, while the opposite was true for IL-1β. Age shared substantial variance with both cytokines and memory, and turned most correlations non-significant when controlled for together with education, BMI and presence of disease. Interactions between age and cytokines were further analyzed in multiple regressions. For IL-6, significant negative interactions with age were found for semantic fluency (p<0.05) and prospective memory (p<0.01), and for sIL-2R in predicting semantic knowledge (p<0.05), indicating an increased negative impact of these cytokines on memory with increasing age. In conclusion, the study indicates a relation between cytokines and memory that appears to be largely mediated by age, and supports the suggestion that cytokine dysregulation with higher age may interact with cognitive aging.     

Perceived causes of everyday memory problems in a population‐based sample aged 39–99

There is usually a weak relation between memory complaints and laboratory memory performance, but few studies have investigated what people perceive as causes of their everyday memory problems. This study investigated prevalence, severity and perceived causes of memory problems in a population‐based sample (N = 361, age‐range 39–99). 30.2 per cent of the participants reported memory complaints (at least moderate memory problems). Higher age was associated with more severe memory problems, but the age‐related differences were small. The most frequent perceived causes were age/ageing, stress and multitasking. Age/ageing as a cause was more frequent among older participants, and stress and multitasking were more frequent among middle‐aged participants. The results suggest that everyday stress and level of engagement in multiple tasks or commitments, that place demands on cognitive resources, are important variables to consider when studying the relations between subjective everyday memory measures, age and memory performance in the laboratory. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vietnamese Immigrant and Refugee Women's Mental Health: An Examination of Age of Arrival,Length of Stay,Income, and English Language Proficiency

Vietnamese immigrant and refugee women (N = 83) were surveyed regarding their mental health, English language proficiency, age of arrival, length of stay, and income. English language proficiency and age of arrival correlated with reduced symptomatology. Moreover, English language proficiency was the sole predictor of somatic distress. Se realizó una encuesta a un grupo de mujeres inmigrantes y refugiadas vietnamitas (N = 83) con respecto a su salud mental, nivel de inglés, edad de llegada, tiempo de estancia y nivel de ingresos. Su nivel de inglés y la edad de llegada mostraron correlación con una sintomatología reducida. Además, el nivel de conocimiento de inglés fue el único elemento capaz de predecir el malestar somático.