Changing food preference as a function of mood

The authors investigated the effect of mood on food selection. Participants (N = 98) indicated the likelihood of general eating and the likelihood of eating specific foods after reading and projecting themselves onto the events and emotions described in a sad and a happy vignette. Both men and women believed they were more likely to consume food following a happy versus a sad event, and men believed they were significantly more likely to eat than did women. However, the type of food men and women believed they would consume interacted with the type of event experienced. Vegetarian snack foods were more likely to be consumed following a happy versus a sad event, with men more likely to eat snack foods. Men did not significantly change in likelihood of consuming sweet foods as their mood changed. However, women believed they were more likely to consume sweet foods following a sad event. The authors discuss the results in terms of a self-medication hypothesis and the effect of carbohydrates on central serotonin and endogenous opioids. Overall, results demonstrated that mood influences belief in the likelihood of food selection.     

Sources of variability in children’s language growth

The present longitudinal study examines the role of caregiver speech in language development, especially syntactic development, using 47 parent–child pairs of diverse SES background from 14 to 46 months. We assess the diversity (variety) of words and syntactic structures produced by caregivers and children. We use lagged correlations to examine language growth and its relation to caregiver speech. Results show substantial individual differences among children, and indicate that diversity of earlier caregiver speech significantly predicts corresponding diversity in later child speech. For vocabulary, earlier child speech also predicts later caregiver speech, suggesting mutual influence. However, for syntax, earlier child speech does not significantly predict later caregiver speech, suggesting a causal flow from caregiver to child. Finally, demographic factors, notably SES, are related to language growth, and are, at least partially, mediated by differences in caregiver speech, showing the pervasive influence of caregiver speech on language growth.     

Story telling and schizophrenia: Using narrative structure in phenomenological research

Abstract

This report demonstrates how narrative findings from phenomenological research can provide insights into the structures of lived experience that generalize beyond the individual cases. Building upon a narrative perspective, the author suggests that the phenomenological study of schizophrenic delusions can disclose the subjective lives of people struggling with this illness. Viewing delusions as stories that people with schizophrenia tell about their lives further suggests that delusions may play a role in the course of the disorder as “regulatory mechanisms” that help people modulate the amount of change to which they will have to adapt in the context of significant life events.     

On the importance of looking back: The role of recursive remindings in recency judgments and cued recall

Suppose that you were asked which of two movies you had most recently seen. The results of the experiments reported here suggest that your answer would be more accurate if, when viewing the later movie, you were reminded of the earlier one. In the present experiments, we investigated the role of remindings in recency judgments and cued-recall performance. We did this by presenting a list composed of two instances from each of several different categories and later asking participants to select (Exp. 1) or to recall (Exp. 2) the more recently presented instance. Reminding was manipulated by varying instructions to look back over memory of earlier instances during the presentation of later instances. As compared to a control condition, cued-recall performance revealed facilitation effects when remindings occurred and were later recollected, but interference effects in their absence. The effects of reminding on recency judgments paralleled those on cued recall of more recently presented instances. We interpret these results as showing that reminding produces a recursive representation that embeds memory for an earlier-presented category instance into that of a later-presented one and, thereby, preserves their temporal order. Large individual differences in the probabilities of remindings and of their later recollection were observed. The widespread importance of recursive reminding for theory and for applied purposes is discussed.     

Remembering change: The critical role of recursive remindings in proactive effects of memory

In three experiments, we examined the role of the detection and recollection of change in proactive effects of memory in a classic A–B, A–D paradigm. Participants studied two lists of word pairs that included pairs repeated across lists (A–B, A–B), pairs with the same cue but a changed response (A–B, A–D) in the second list, and control pairs (A–B, C–D). The results revealed that performance on A–B, A–D pairs reflected a mixture of facilitation and interference effects. Proactive facilitation occurred when changes in responses were detected and recollected, whereas proactive interference occurred when change was not detected or when it was not recollected. We describe detecting change as involving recursive remindings that result in memory for the List 1 response being embedded in the representation of memory for the List 2 response. These embedded representations preserve the temporal order of the responses. Our findings highlight the importance of detection and recollection of change for proactive effects of memory.     

Refocusing on the Learning in “Integration of Faith and Learning"

The purpose of this study was to assess student perceptions of the faith-learning integration process in instructional methods courses taught by a single professor. Thirty-one students were asked by the professor to complete an open-ended questionnaire at the end of their course experience. Results indicated that students in this study described or defined the integration of faith and learning in ways reflective of the content of the courses, which was teaching methods. While not all students said integration of faith and learning occurred in the classes, all students did provide examples of integrative moments. Most students described faith-learning integration in terms of teacher actions rather than student actions. Thus, it appears that these students were describing integration of faith and teaching more so than integration of faith and learning.