The effect of ageing on the recollection of emotional and neutral pictures

This study investigated age-related differences in recognition memory for emotional and neutral pictures. Younger and older participants were asked to rate pictures according to their emotional valence, arousal, and visual complexity. Two weeks later they had to recognise these pictures and the states of awareness associated with memory were assessed with the "remember/know/guess" paradigm. We found that, although the influence of emotion on recognition accuracy (as assessed by d') was similar in both age groups, the tendency for positive and negative pictures to create a rich recollective experience was weaker in older adults. In addition, "remember" responses were more often based on a recollection of emotional reactions in older than in younger participants. We suggest that the elderly tend to focus on their feelings when confronted with emotional pictures, which could have impaired their memory for the contextual information associated with these stimuli.     

Age-related differences in time-based prospective memory: The role of time estimation in the clock monitoring strategy

Time-based prospective memory (TBPM) is required when it is necessary to remember to perform an action at a specific future point in time. This type of memory has been found to be particularly sensitive to ageing, probably because it requires a self-initiated response at a specific time. In this study, we sought to examine the involvement of temporal processes in the time monitoring strategy, which has been demonstrated to be a decisive factor in TBPM efficiency. We compared the performance of young and older adults in a TBPM task in which they had to press a response button every minute while categorising words. The design allowed participants to monitor time by checking a clock whenever they decided. Participants also completed a classic time-production task and several executive tasks assessing inhibition, updating and shifting processes. Our results confirm an age-related lack of accuracy in prospective memory performance, which seems to be related to a deficient strategic use of time monitoring. This could in turn be partially explained by age-related temporal deficits, as evidenced in the duration production task. These findings suggest that studies designed to investigate the age effect in TBPM tasks should consider the contribution of temporal mechanisms.     

An Exploration of Parents’ Experiences and Empowerment in the Care for Preterm Born Children

Because of improved survival rates and medical prospects, the emphasis in care for preterm infants has shifted in recent years to a focus on support for the wellbeing of children and their families. For the healthcare professionals the parents of these children are the main partners for improving the care of their children. In this context, referring to “patient empowerment” implies not only the infant but also the parents, in other words “parent empowerment”. We aimed to explore parents’ experiences with hospital and aftercare for their preterm children, and the implications for parent empowerment, by organizing face-to-face (n = 4 and n = 7) and online (n = 14) focus group interviews with parents of preterm children. These focus group interviews showed that these parents indicated a lack of support and recognition of parental worries in the care for their infant during two important periods: (1) the transfer to another hospital and (2) after discharge home. These group interviews showed that parents greatly value initiatives that support and empower them in their role as parents and that strengthens their involvement in the care for their children. Requirements for enhancing parent empowerment are proposed.     

Autobiographical memory, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective in aging

In this study, the authors examined the effects of aging on autobiographical memory in 180 participants by means of a new method designed to assess across 5 lifetime periods the nature of memories-that is, specificity and spontaneity--and the phenomenal experience of remembering--that is, self-perspective and autonoetic consciousness--via the field/observer and remember/know paradigms respectively. Age-related differences were found for the specificity and spontaneity of memories and the phenomenal experience of remembering. There was an increase in observer and know responses with age, but a decrease in field and remember responses and in the ability to justify them by recalling sensory-perceptive, affective, or spatiotemporal specific details. This pattern confirms the existence of a semantic-episodic dissociation in autobiographical memory in aging. Moreover, the data support the view that older participants can subjectively "travel back in time" to relive personal events in the most distant past better than those in the recent past.     

The Biomedical Paradigm and the Nobel Prize: Is It Time for a Change?

An examination of the early history of Nobel Committee deliberations, coupled with a survey of discoveries for which prizes have been awarded to date – and, equally revealing, discoveries for which prizes have not been awarded – reveals a pattern. This pattern suggests that Committee members may have internalized the received, biomedical model and conferred awards in accord with the physicalistic premises that ground this model. I consider the prospect of a paradigm change in medical science and the possible repercussions of such a change on the distribution of Nobel prizes within the domain of physiology or medicine. For expository purposes, I contrast a model based on a science of pathophysiology with one based on a science of pathopsychophysiology. I propose a means whereby members might minimize the potentially blinding effects of model-dependence and come to evaluate medical discoveries from an inter-model rather than an exclusively intra-model perspective. By bringing to light questions rarely asked and proposing answers, I seek to open a dialogue and furnish a vehicle by which the putative delimiting effects of model-dependence might be overcome.     

Sosa on knowledge,justification, and aptness

Presented in an author meets critics symposium on Ernest Sosa'sKnowledge in Perspective at the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, March 26, 1993. The other critic was Jonathan Dancy, and Sosa responded.     

A fixed interval schedule in which the interval is initiated by a response

The fixed interval schedule described requires the animal to initiate every time interval by making a response on a bar other than the one on which it is reinforced. This response, R_A, demarcates the postreinforcement pause (S^R-R_A interval) from the fixed interval pause (R_A-R_B interval) so that these pauses may be measured separately. Twelve rats and three monkeys, working in two-bar Skinner boxes, were trained and stabilized on this schedule. The resulting performances, presented for individual animals, are analyzed in terms of (1) the relative frequencies with which the animal waits various lengths of time between consecutive responses, (2) the relative frequencies with which various rates of responding appear, (3) the change in response rate throughout the fixed interval, (4) the average length of the postreinforcement pause, (5) the relative frequencies with which the animal waits different lengths of time between the R_A and the first R_B, and (6) the average inter-response time as a function of the rank order in the fixed interval of the inter-response time. The joint interpretation of the several measures taken leads to the following conclusions: 1. The probability of an R_B increases throughout the fixed interval. 2. The increase is discontinuous at the first R_B, at which point the probability increases sharply. 3. The frequency distributions of R_A-R_B pauses exhibit three discrete types of behavior with no intermediate cases. 4. The (main) mode of R_A-R_B interval length usually occurs just below the fixed interval requirement.     

Native american alcoholism: A transcultural counseling perspective

Alcohol-related mental and physical health problems are critical problems among Native Americans. The intensity of these problems increased proportionately to the destruction of traditional/aboriginal ways. Despite centuries of attempts at physical and cultural genocide a semblance of traditionalism survived to the presence among many tribal groups. Nonetheless the vast majority of contemporary Native Americans are ‘marginal’—caught between their traditional culture and the demands of the dominant United States society. Treating Native Americans merely from the conventional clinical perspective spells of ethnocentrism while a pure traditional approach often serves to restrict both off-reservation mobility and inter-tribal interactions. Here the transcultural approach offers a needed bridge for effective Native American alcohol and mental health counseling.     

Domains of deontic reasoning: Resolving the discrepancy between the cognitive and moral reasoning literatures

Deontic reasoning has been studied in two subfields of psychology: the cognitive and moral reasoning literatures. These literatures have drawn different conclusions about the nature of deontic reasoning. The consensus within the cognitive reasoning literature is that deontic reasoning is a unitary phenomenon, whereas the consensus within the moral reasoning literature is that there are different subdomains of deontic reasoning. We present evidence from a series of experiments employing the methods of both literatures suggesting that people make a systematic distinction between two types of deontic rule: social contracts and precautions. The results call into question the prevailing opinion in the cognitive reasoning literature and provide further support for both an evolutionary view of deontic reasoning and the more domain-specific perspective found in the moral reasoning literature.