A vicious or auspicious cycle: The reciprocal relation between harsh parental discipline and children’s self-regulation

Children’s ability to exercise self-regulation is a key predictor of academic, behavioural, and life outcomes, but the developmental dynamics of children’s self-regulation are not adequately understood. We investigated how children’s self-regulation skills and harsh parental discipline reciprocally predict each other across 12,474 children at ages three, five, and seven in the U.K. (Millennium Cohort Study). Cross-lagged structural equation models indicated that high initial levels of harsh parental discipline predicted lower subsequent self-regulation, which then reciprocally predicted higher levels of harsh parental discipline. Conversely, high initial levels of child self-regulation predicted lower subsequent harsh parental discipline. Implications for policy and interventions are discussed.     

The influence of averaging and noisy decision strategies on the recognition memory ROC

Many single- and dual-process models of recognition memory predict that the ratings and remember-know receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) are the same, but Rotello, Macmillan, and Reeder (2004) reported that the slopes of the remember-know and ratingsz-transformed ROCs (zROCs) are different. The authors show that averaging introduces nonlinearities to the form of thezROC and that ratings and remember-knowzROCs are indistinguishable when constructed in a conventional manner. The authors show, further, that some nonoptimal decision strategies have a distinctive, nonlinear effect on the form of the single-process continuous-statezROC. The conclusion is that many factors having nothing to do with the nature of recognition memory can affect the shape ofzROCs, and that therefore, the shape of thezROC does not, alone, characterize different memory models.     

On the relationship between memory and perception: sequential dependencies in recognition memory testing

Many models of recognition are derived from models originally applied to perception tasks, which assume that decisions from trial to trial are independent. While the independence assumption is violated for many perception tasks, we present the results of several experiments intended to relate memory and perception by exploring sequential dependencies in recognition. The findings from these experiments disconfirm the independence assumption for recognition memory. In addition, the pattern of sequential dependencies observed in recognition differs from that observed for many perception tasks. This suggests that sequential dependencies arise from mnemonic or perceptual processes and not from decision processes that should be common to memory and perception tasks.     

Overcoming the negative consequences of interference from recognition memory testing

Theories of why humans forget have been challenged by the newly discovered list-length/output-interference paradox, in which--under certain testing conditions--learning is not harmed by the amount of verbal material studied, whereas retrieval of that material becomes more difficult with increases in the number of items tested. The latter finding is known as output interference, and the results of the experiment reported here indicate that a release from output interference is obtained when the nature of the items is changed during testing. Specifically, when participants are asked to recognize items from two categories, output interference is minimized when items from each category are tested separately in large blocks. This finding supports models of forgetting that assume interference arises from information about the to-be-learned material that is stored in memory; in contrast, this finding is difficult to explain using models that assume forgetting is the result only of changing context.     

Hopeful struggling for health: Experiences of participating in computerized cognitive training and aerobic training for persons with stress-related exhaustion disorder

It is important to understand how people with exhaustion disorder (ED) perceive interventions aiming to facilitate cognitive functioning. Therefore, the overall aim of this study was to explore experiences from persons with ED after participating in a 12-week intervention of either computerized cognitive training or aerobic training. Both interventions were performed in addition to a multimodal rehabilitation programme. Thirteen participants, 11 women and 2 men, were interviewed about pros and cons with participating in the training. The interviews were analysed with Qualitative Content Analysis. The analyses resulted in the theme hopeful struggling for health and the categories support, motivation and sensations. It was hard work recovering from ED. Support from others who are in the same situation, family members, and technology and routines for the training were strongly emphasized as beneficial for recovery. Timing, i.e., matching activities to the rehabilitation programme, getting feedback and perceiving joy in the training were important for motivation. Participants in both interventions experienced positive sensations with improved memory performance, everyday life functioning and increased faith in the prospect of recovery. However, it is important to consider various aspects of support and motivation in both computerized cognitive training and aerobic training to enable participants to pursue their participation.