Working memory in the oldest-old: evidence from output serial position curves

In the present study, we examined adult age differences in short-term and working memory performance in middle-aged (45–64 years), young–old (65–74 years), old–old (75–89 years), and oldest–old adults (90 years and over) in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study. Previous research suggests that measures of working memory are more sensitive to age effects than are simple tests of short-term memory Bopp and Verhaeghen (Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences 60:223–233, 2005), Myerson, Emery, White, and Hale, (Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 10:20–27, 2003). To test this hypothesis, we examined output serial position curves of recall data from three span tasks: forward and backward digit span and size judgment span. Participants’ recall patterns in the size judgment span task revealed that the two oldest groups of adults showed the largest decreases in recall performance across output serial positions, but did not differ significantly from each other. Correlation analyses indicated the strongest negative correlation with age occurred with the size judgment span task. Implications of these findings for understanding strategic processing abilities in late life are discussed.     

Infant color preference for red is not selectively context specific

It has been proposed that human infants, like nonhuman primates, respond favorably to red in hospitable contexts, yet unfavorably in hostile contexts (Maier, Barchfeld, Elliot, & Pekrun, 2009). Here, we replicate and extend the study (Maier et al., 2009) whose findings have been used to support this hypothesis. As in Maier et al., 1-year-old infants were shown a photograph of a happy or angry face before pairs of colors were presented, yet in the current study, the set of stimuli crucially included two colors that are typically preferred by infants (red and blue). The percentage of times that infants looked first at the colors was analyzed for the two emotional "contexts." Following the happy face, infants looked first at red and blue equally, but significantly more than green. Following the angry face, the pattern of looking preference was the same as following the happy face, but the variation across the three colors was reduced. Contrary to Maier et al.'s hypothesis, there was no evidence that infants are selectively averse to red in angry contexts: following the angry face, "preference" for both red and blue was reduced, but was not significantly below chance. We therefore suggest an alternative account to Maier et al.'s evolutionary hypothesis, which argues that an angry face merely removes infant color preference, potentially due to the perceptual characteristics of the angry face disrupting infants' encoding of color. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Sex differences in relationship regret: The role of perceived mate characteristics

The current set of studies examined regret involving action and inaction in the realm of romantic relationships by testing whether such regret is associated with the characteristics of one's mate. In study 1, 394 participants reported on a previous casual sexual encounter, and in study 2, 358 participants reported on a previous romantic relationship. In both, instances of actual engagement and instances of passing up opportunities were studied. Study 3 was experimental and elicited reactions to hypothetical scenarios from 201 participants. Regret reported by men in both study 1 and study 2 varied as a function of the perceived attractiveness of the participants' actual and potential mate. Regret reported by women in study 2 varied as a function of the perceived stinginess of the participant's mate and perceived wealth of the participants' potential mate. Study 3 found that sex differences in type of regret (with men regretting inaction more than women) occurred only when the mate presented in the scenario was described in ways consistent with mate preferences. Together these findings suggest that regret differs between the sexes in ways consistent with sex differences in mate preferences.     

Item analysis and differential item functioning of a brief conduct problem screen

Research has shown that boys display higher levels of childhood conduct problems than girls, and Black children display higher levels than White children, but few studies have tested for scalar equivalence of conduct problems across gender and race. The authors conducted a 2-parameter item response theory (IRT) model to examine item characteristics of the Authority Acceptance scale from the Teacher Observation of Classroom Adaptation-Revised (AA-TOCA-R; L. Larsson-Werthamer, S. G. Kellam, & L. Wheeler, 1991) in 8,820 kindergarten children and estimated the degree of differential item functioning (DIF) by gender and race/urban status. The mean level of latent conduct problems was best represented by behaviors such as being stubborn, breaking rules, and being disobedient, whereas breaking things and taking others' property best represented the construct at one standard deviation above the mean. DIF by gender was detected, such that at equivalent levels of latent conduct problems, males received more endorsements of overt behaviors from teachers, whereas females received more endorsements of nonphysical behaviors. Moreover, overt behaviors were better discriminators of latent conduct problems for males, and nonphysical behaviors were better discriminators of latent conduct problems for females. Differences across race/urban status were not found to be conceptually meaningful. The authors' analyses also suggest that the item scaling of the AA-TOCA-R may be best represented by 5e categories instead of 6. These findings provide support for the use of IRT modeling to examine item characteristics of conduct problem scales and DIF to test for scalar equivalence across diverse subpopulations.     

Environmental enrichment protects against the effects of chronic stress on cognitive and morphological measures of hippocampal integrity

Chronic stress has detrimental effects on hippocampal integrity, while environmental enrichment (EE) has beneficial effects when initiated early in development. In this study, we investigated whether EE initiated in adulthood would mitigate chronic stress effects on cognitive function and hippocampal neuronal architecture, when EE started one week before chronic stress began, or two weeks after chronic stress onset. Adult male Sprague Dawley rats were chronically restrained (6h/d) or assigned as non-stressed controls and subdivided into EE or non-EE housing. After restraint ended, rats were tested on a radial arm water maze (RAWM) for 2-d to assess spatial learning and memory. The first study showed that when EE began prior to 3-weeks of chronic stress, EE attenuated chronic stress-induced impairments in acquisition, which corresponded with the prevention of chronic stress-induced reductions in CA3 apical dendritic length. A second study showed that when EE began 2-weeks after the onset of a 5-week stress regimen, EE blocked chronic stress-induced impairments in acquisition and retention at 1-h and 24-h delays. RAWM performance corresponded with CA3 apical dendritic complexity. Moreover, rats in EE housing (control or stress) exhibited similar corticosterone profiles across weeks, which differed from the muted corticosterone response to restraint by the chronically stressed pair-housed rats. These data support the interpretation that chronic stress and EE may act on similar mechanisms within the hippocampus, and that manipulation of these factors may yield new directions for optimizing brain integrity and resilience under chronic stress or stress related neuropsychological disorders in the adult.     

Building the perfect curse word: A psycholinguistic investigation of the form and meaning of taboo words

Taboo words represent a potent subset of natural language. It has been hypothesized that “tabooness” reflects an emergent property of negative valence and high physiological arousal of word referents. Many taboo words (e.g., dick, shit) are indeed consistent with this claim. Nevertheless, American English is also rife with negatively valenced, highly arousing words the usage of which is not socially condemned (e.g., cancer, abortion, welfare). We evaluated prediction of tabooness of single words and novel taboo compound words from a combination of phonological, lexical, and semantic variables (e.g., semantic category, word length). For single words, physiological arousal and emotional valence strongly predicted tabooness with additional moderating contributions from form (phonology) and meaning (semantic category). In Experiment 2, raters judged plausibility for combinations of common nouns with taboo words to form novel taboo compounds (e.g., shitgibbon). A mixture of formal (e.g., ratio of stop consonants, length) and semantic variables (e.g., ± receptacle, ± profession) predicted the quality of novel taboo compounding. Together, these studies provide complementary evidence for interactions between word form and meaning and an algorithmic prediction of tabooness in American English. We discuss applications for models of taboo word representation.