Relationship between types of humour and stress response and well‐being among children in Japan

This study examined the relationship between three types of children's humour (aggressive, self‐defeating, and playful) and the children's stress response and well‐being in the Japanese context, where a collectivistic culture is prevalent. To do so, 500 study participants (250 elementary and 250 junior high school students) were recruited. The participants reported the types of humour, stress responses, and level of well‐being that they experienced. After correlation analysis, aggressive humour and playful humour showed a positive correlation with stress responses; in addition, aggressive humour showed a negative correlation with well‐being. Self‐defeating humour showed a negative correlation with stress responses and a positive correlation with well‐being. We also conducted a cluster analysis using the scores for the three types of humour, analysing four groups: “aggressive humourists” (respondents who demonstrated above‐average aggressive humour and scored average for all other humours), “nonhumourists” (below‐average humour in all areas), “self‐deprecating humourists” (above‐average self‐defeating humour, below‐average aggressive humour, and average playful humour), and “multiple humourists” (above‐average humour in all areas). Upon comparing the results of stress responses and well‐being scores among the four groups, we found that self‐deprecating humourists reported the highest level of well‐being. These results show that in collectivistic cultures, self‐defeating humour may be adaptive.     

Spatial memory over long retention intervals: nonmemorial factors are not necessary for accurate performance on the radial-arm maze by rats

A. Markowska, O. Buresová, and J. Bures (1983, Behavioral and Neural Biology, 38, 97-112) argued that the apparent persistence of accurate spatial working memory over delays of several hours arises from the formation of response strategies and the use of olfactory stimuli that develop with extended training at long delays. To test this explanation rats with extensive prior training at long delays were forced to enter the first four arms in a random order. On test days, the maze was rotated 180 degrees during the 2-h retention interval to determine whether the rats were using intramaze or extramaze (i.e., spatial) cues to guide their choices. On both rotation and control days, postdelay choices were spatially guided, averaging over 90% correct. Accurate spatial working memory at long delays is a reproducible phenomenon and does not appear to result from nonmemorial artifacts.     

Why do categorization effects occur in comparative judgment tasks?

Three experiments were conducted to understand what eliminates the symbolic distance effect for reaction times (RTs) when subjects learn that items belong to categories. Artificial city locations were judged, and artificial states served as categories. In Experiment 1, whether or not categories were presented and the amount of categorization practice were manipulated. Only those subjects who had practice categorizing cities into states showed a reduced symbolic distance effect for different-state pairs. Analyses of serial position curves indicated that categorization produced faster RTs to different-as compared with their adjacent same-state pairs and it also produced faster RTs for same-state pairs closer to the category border. The border seems to serve as an anchor and facilitates RTs. In Experiments 2a and 2b, distance judgments were made by subjects who either had or had not categorized artificial cities into states. Subjects who learned categories gave larger estimates of distance between cities belonging to different states than to cities belonging to the same state. Categorization seemed to place cities from different states farther apart in psychological space, making their locations more discriminable. This, along with the use of the category border as an anchor, might explain why categorization effects occur in this location judgment task.     

Shared attention in pigeons

Two pigeons performed a three-key matching-to-sample task. The comparison (side key) stimuli were either solid colors or white lines. The sample (center key) stimuli were either compounds (white lines on colored grounds) or elements (white lines on black grounds on some trials, and solid colors on other trials). Sample stimuli were presented for nine sample stimulus durations ranging between 0.04 and 5.00 sec. Within each daily session, both compound and element samples were presented at each sample duration in a random sequence. Compound samples controlled matching responses less effectively than did element samples at all sample stimulus durations.     

Picture memory: recognizing added and deleted details

When people are presented simple and complex pictures and then tested in a same-changed recognition test with a simple or complex form of each, d' is greater for the simple than the complex picture (Pezdek & Chen, 1982). The results of three experiments confirm the robustness of this "asymmetric confusability effect" and test a model of the processes underlying this effect. According to the model, pictures are schematically encoded such that the memory representation of both simple and complex pictures is similar to the simple form of each. In Experiment 1, a sentence was presented that described the central schema in the picture prior to subjects' viewing each picture. This manipulation exaggerated the asymmetric confusability effect; schematic processing thus underlies the effect. Results of Experiment 2 refute the hypothesis that the effect results from subjects erroneously anticipating a recall test rather than a recognition test. Furthermore, although some of the nonschematic elaborative information in complex pictures is stored in memory, it is difficult to retrieve to verify that something is missing when complex presentation pictures are changed to simple test pictures (Experiment 3). Thus, although people are able to distinguish large sets of old pictures from new distractor pictures, their ability to detect missing elaborative visual details is more limited.     

Short-term memory in the rhesus monkey: A behavioral analysis of delayed-response performance

This study obtained quantitative data on the bodily orientations of rhesus monkeys in a delayed-response task and determined whether such orientations mediate the correct response in a choice trial. The basic task was a two-key chain schedule with the key leading to food signaled in the initial component. During the subsequent delay interval, the signal was removed, but it was necessary that one of the keys be pressed to advance the schedule to the terminal choice component. The position of the key pressed thus indicated orientation during the delay interval. When the monkeys had free access to the left and right keys, they tended to press the key leading to food throughout the chain schedule components and received food on more than 85% of the trials, even when the delay was extended to 20 seconds. However, when orientation toward the food key was disrupted by forcing the monkeys to press an extraneous center key during the delay, choice performance deteriorated. Requiring the center key presses early, rather than late, in the delay component had a strong disruptive effect. The relation of the results to the mediating coding-response hypothesis is discussed.     

A quantitative near-infrared spectroscopy study: a decrease in cerebral hemoglobin oxygenation in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment

A newly developed quantitative near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system was used to measure changes in cortical hemoglobin oxygenation during the Verbal Fluency Task in 32 healthy controls, 15 subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 15 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The amplitude of changes in the waveform, which was quantitatively calculated by a signal processing method, was significantly lower in the frontal, and the bilateral parietal areas in the AD group, whereas that in the MCI group was significantly lower only in the right parietal area. The NIRS system may be a potential tool for the primary screening of AD.     

Trauma healing in refugee camps in Guinea: a psychosocial program for Liberian and Sierra Leonean survivors of torture and war

From 1999 to 2005, the Minneapolis-based Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) served Liberian and Sierra Leonean survivors of torture and war living in the refugee camps of Guinea. A psychosocial program was developed with 3 main goals: (a) to provide mental health care, (b) to train local refugee counselors, and (c) to raise community awareness about war trauma and mental health. Utilizing paraprofessional counselors under the close, on-site supervision of expatriate clinicians, the treatment model blended elements of Western and indigenous healing. The core component consisted of relationship-based supportive group counseling. Clinical interventions were guided by a 3-stage model of trauma recovery (safety, mourning, reconnection), which was adapted to the realities of the refugee camp setting. Over 4,000 clients were provided with counseling, and an additional 15,000 were provided with other supportive services. Results from follow-up assessments indicated significant reductions in trauma symptoms and increases in measures of daily functioning and social support during and after participation in groups. The treatment model developed in Guinea served as the basis for CVT's ongoing work with survivors in Sierra Leone and Liberia. ((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).     

Does distraction reduce pain-produced distress among college students?

College students in four experiments placed their hands in ice water (the cold-pressor task) and reported their distress. They simultaneously engaged in different reaction-time (RT) tasks that varied in the amount of attention required for successful performance. In each experiment, which differed in numerous procedural details, RT, error-rate, and self-report measures all demonstrated that the distraction tasks differed in the degree of attention required. Greater distraction, however, failed to reduce physiological, self-report, or behavioral responses to the cold-pressor task. These data call into question the hypothesis that attention mediates the process whereby distraction tasks reduce pain-produced distress.