Childhood remembered: Reports of both unique and repeated events

To explore the significance of repeated memories for individuals' personal histories, we compared the characteristics of young adults' unique and repeated memories of childhood experiences. Memory type (unique vs. repeated) was a within-participant variable. In Experiment 1, college-age participants generated as many early memories as possible in 4 minutes; in Experiment 2, another sample provided complete reports of five early memories in each condition. In both experiments, participants rated the vividness, biographical importance and personal meaning of each memory and labelled the accompanying emotion. Unique memories were more vivid than repeated memories as well as more likely to include negative emotion, regardless of the method of reporting. Most importantly, college students rated their memories for unique and repeated events as equivalently infused with personal meaning. Analysis of the content of the memories reported in Experiment 2 established that unique and repeated memories did not differ in word count or percentages of perceptual terms or words indicating positive affect, although unique memories contained a greater percentage of negative affect. Additional analyses of content provided evidence for differences in the functions served by unique and repeated memories. The results have implications for the study of autobiographical memory and for identifying over-general memories.     

Immigration,language proficiency,and autobiographical memories: Lifespan distribution and second-language access

This investigation examined two controversies in the autobiographical literature: how cross-language immigration affects the distribution of autobiographical memories across the lifespan and under what circumstances language-dependent recall is observed. Both Spanish/English bilingual immigrants and English monolingual non-immigrants participated in a cue word study, with the bilingual sample taking part in a within-subject language manipulation. The expected bump in the number of memories from early life was observed for non-immigrants but not immigrants, who reported more memories for events surrounding immigration. Aspects of the methodology addressed possible reasons for past discrepant findings. Language-dependent recall was influenced by second-language proficiency. Results were interpreted as evidence that bilinguals with high second-language proficiency, in contrast to those with lower second-language proficiency, access a single conceptual store through either language. The final multi-level model predicting language-dependent recall, including second-language proficiency, age of immigration, internal language, and cue word language, explained ¾ of the between-person variance and ¹/₅ of the within-person variance. We arrive at two conclusions. First, major life transitions influence the distribution of memories. Second, concept representation across multiple languages follows a developmental model. In addition, the results underscore the importance of considering language experience in research involving memory reports.     

Item strength affects working memory capacity

Do the processing and online manipulation of stimuli that are less familiar require more working memory (WM) resources? Is it more difficult to solve demanding problems when the symbols involved are less rather than more familiar? We explored these questions with a dual-task paradigm in which subjects had to solve algebra problems of different complexities while simultaneously holding novel symbol–digit associations in WM. The symbols were previously unknown Chinese characters, whose familiarity was manipulated by differential training frequency with a visual search task for nine hour-long sessions over 3 weeks. Subsequently, subjects solved equations that required one or two transformations. Before each trial, two different integers were assigned to two different Chinese characters of the same training frequency. Half of the time, those characters were present as variables in the equation and had to be substituted for the corresponding digits. After attempting to solve the equation, subjects had to recognize which two characters were shown immediately before that trial and to recall the integer associated with each. Solution accuracy and response times were better when the problems required one transformation only; variable substitution was not required; or the Chinese characters were high frequency. The effects of stimulus familiarity increased as the WM demands of the equation increased. Character–digit associations were also recalled less well with low-frequency characters. These results provide strong support that WM capacity depends not only on the number of chunks of information one is attempting to process but also on their strength or familiarity.     

Self‐focused attention and social anxiety

Cognitive models propose that self‐focused attention (SFA) interacts with fear of negative evaluation to maintain social anxiety. Thus, the effect of SFA on anxiety would be expected to be specific to those with existing social concerns. However, much research suggests that the effect of SFA on anxiety occurs across anxiety levels. Manipulations of attention focus have been criticised for (1) lack of ecological validity and (2) eliciting fear of negative evaluation directly. The present study examined the role of SFA in social anxiety using an ecologically valid procedure that did not elicit fear of negative evaluation directly. Self‐reported anxiety was assessed among high and low socially anxious individuals under conditions of SFA or external‐focused attention. The manipulation successfully altered focus of attention but did not directly affect fear of negative evaluation or self‐reported anxiety. Taken together with the findings of previous studies, the results suggest that focusing on internal physiological states per se does not increase self‐reported social anxiety, and that self‐focus that does not have an explicitly evaluative dimension does not elicit social anxiety. The findings have implications for approaches to reducing social anxiety through reducing SFA.     

Community treatment of severe, refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder

Despite the existence of effective psychological and pharmacological interventions for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), there are a large proportion of individuals for whom intervention is not effective. The study reports on the results of a community treatment service for individuals with treatment-refractory OCD who have not benefitted from previous cognitive behavioural or pharmacological treatment by community mental health services. A total of 205 individuals accepted for treatment by a specialist community OCD treatment service in London were provided with a combination of behavioural, cognitive, and pharmacological treatment within a specialist OCD service, with 158 completing treatment. Treatment was associated with significant reduction in clinician-rated and self-reported OCD symptoms after 12 weeks, with further reductions in OCD symptoms over a subsequent 12-week period. A significant reduction in symptoms of depression was also observed after 12 and 24 weeks. Approximately 40% of individuals treated experienced clinically significant improvement in their symptoms, with approximately 10% deemed to have recovered by the end of treatment. Our results add to previous research into refractory OCD, and provide support for the existence of specialist community treatment services which may provide assistance to individuals who have not responded to previous treatment.     

Examining dimensions of vulnerability among children in Uganda

Insufficient data on the nature and extent of children's vulnerability in Uganda has challenged government and donors in priority setting, resource allocation and developing effective approaches to improve well-being. We conducted a population-based survey among a nationally representative sample of 2551 households, covering a total of 7946 children. We engaged national stakeholders in a priority-setting exercise to develop a scoring system to assess dimensions of children's vulnerability. The exercise identified individual and household characteristics to assess vulnerability--many of which had not been measured previously--to which numerical weights representing vulnerability level were assigned. Highly weighted characteristics included maternal death, disability, child labour and pregnancy before age 17. Psychosocial elements included living apart from siblings, having nobody to talk to and never visiting a living parent. According to this approach, an estimated 51.1% of children in Uganda (weighted for national population distribution) are considered critically or moderately vulnerable. It is to these children, equivalent to a national total of 8.7 million, that support services should be prioritised. However, survey data suggest that the most critically vulnerable children are under-represented in several types of support services. This pioneering, participatory methodology provides a rudimentary, but valuable, first step towards quantifying the vulnerability of children in Uganda and assessing their resource needs. It has been used by the Government of Uganda to determine subcategories of vulnerability for resource allocation. A major advantage is that it uses local contextual knowledge of child vulnerability rather than generic criteria applied in international surveys. Further analytical work is required to validate the methodology, link it to child well-being outcomes and devise a practical tool for service providers to refine programme targeting. The approach may be useful to national, regional or local service providers seeking an overview of their client base to monitor and improve programme-targeting efforts.     

How valuable is a well‐crafted design and name brand?: Recognition and willingness to pay

Preferences for similarly designed consumer products, evaluated blind and branded and also with and without prices, were tested in a consumer setting. The consumer's perceptual experience led to preference of the well‐crafted high‐priced option. This preference was enhanced by priming consumers with background information about the brand, perhaps causing the subjects to guess which choice was the well‐known brand before evaluation. Preferences for that choice increased again when brand names were visible during evaluation. When actual prices were added to the evaluations, preferences for the well‐known brand were very robust to high prices, indicating the strength of the brand name. Using the least preferred option and the lowest price as an anchor, the consumers' price threshold to pay for the preferred design and the brand name was computed. Attempts to explain and predict individual differences of choices using measures of inherent design acumen, prior experience, and purchasing behavior were largely unsuccessful. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.