Remembering the place with the tiger: Survival processing can enhance source memory

Rating the relevance of words for survival in the grasslands of a foreign land often leads to a memory advantage. However, it is as yet unclear whether the survival processing effect generalizes to source memory. Here, we examined whether people have enhanced source memory for the survival context in which an item has been encountered. Participants were asked to make survival-based or moving-based decisions about items prior to a classical source memory test. A multinomial model was used to measure old–new discrimination, source memory, and guessing biases separately. We replicated the finding of a survival advantage in old–new recognition. Extending previous results, we also found a survival-processing advantage in source memory. These results are in line with the richness-of-encoding explanation of the survival processing advantage and with an adaptive perspective on memory.     

Identity Negotiations of Colombian International Students

Research has pointed to challenges and positive aspects of the international student experience, but it has been mainly outcome-oriented and has not addressed the ongoing identity negotiations of these students as they navigate a new cultural setting. The aim of this study was to illustrate the application of a sociocultural/dialogical framework to the analysis of identity processing by international students. Based on interviews with 14 Colombian university students in the United States, the analysis identified meanings (positionings) relative to the experience, tensions between meanings and, for some students, abstractions that served to resolve the tensions. We suggest that this dialogical framework promotes needed attention to the dynamic, ongoing nature of identity meaning creation.     

Callous-Unemotional Traits,Relational and Social Aggression,and Interpersonal Maturity in a Sample of Behaviorally Disordered Adolescents

The authors examined the degree to which callous-unemotional traits and narcissism predict relational aggression, social aggression, and prosocial skills in a sample of 79 adolescent offenders (13–18 years old; 26% girls; 74% boys) attending a school for youth with behavior disorders in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Narcissism made a significant contribution to the prediction of both relational aggression and social aggression, accounting for most of the unique variance in the prediction of these indirect forms of aggression. Conversely, callous-unemotional traits—but not narcissism—made a significant contribution to the prediction of lower prosocial skills. Furthermore, in contrast to the large number of studies indicating gender differences in the expression of aggression, no significant gender differences in the present study were found.     

Virtual conversation partner for adults with autism

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is notable for severely impaired reciprocal social interaction skills relative to language and intellectual abilities, presenting a major barrier to social integration and vocational success. Evidence-based interventions to address these needs are lacking. We report on the development of a small, prototype conversation simulation to teach conversational skills to adolescents and adults with ASD and average to superior intellectual abilities. We also report on a test of the feasibility and acceptability of the simulation approach with a sample of the target population. The simulation engages the user in a virtual conversation with an on-screen partner whose reactions provide naturalistic feedback geared to the appropriateness of the learner's response choices. The prototype simulation, which provides for up to 12 potentially unique multi-turn conversations, was used over a period of 2 weeks by 16 adolescents and adults who then rated statements about the system on a linear scale of 1 (disagreement) to 5 (high agreement). The participants highly endorsed the majority of positive statements about the quality and credibility of the interaction and the virtual conversation partner. In contrast, agreement with positive statements about instructional features external to the conversation was moderate. Unexpectedly, most participants strongly agreed that using the simulation had been helpful to them. Further development and testing in the context of a controlled study with randomized assignment to control and experimental groups are needed to determine whether this approach is effective in improving real-world pragmatic language behavior of high-functioning adults with ASD.     

Brain rCBF and performance in visual imagery tasks: Common and distinct processes

The present study was designed to discover whether variations in normalised regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in different brain areas predict variations in performance of different imagery tasks. Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to assess brain activity as 16 participants performed four imagery tasks. These tasks were designed so that performance was particularly sensitive to the participant's ability to form images with high resolution, to generate images from distinct segments, to parse imaged forms into parts while inspecting them, or to transform (rotate) images. Response times and error rates were recorded. Multiple regression analyses revealed that variations in most brain areas predicted variations in performance of only one task, thus demonstrating that the four tasks tap largely independent imagery processes. However, we also found that some underlying processes were recruited by more than one task, particularly those implemented in the occipito‐parietal sulcus, the medial frontal cortex, and Area 18.