The development and effectiveness of memory strategies in kindergarten and elementary school: Findings from the Würzburg and Göttingen longitudinal memory studies

This article reports findings of the Würzburg and Göttingen Longitudinal Memory Studies, which focused on children's verbal memory development. The studies started with 102 (German) kindergarten children in Würzburg and 86 second-graders in Göttingen who were tested on various memory measures, including sort-recall, memory capacity, metamemory, and verbal IQ. Assessments were repeated nine times, with adjacent measurement points separated by 6-month time intervals. The main goals of the studies concerned the assessment of utilization deficiencies during the course of strategy development, the analysis of factors influencing the effectiveness of strategy use, and the occurrence of multiple strategy use. Findings confirmed the outcome of previous longitudinal studies in that semantic organization strategies were not always accompanied by superior recall, but utilization deficiency problems were comparably rare. Strategy effectiveness was shown as being affected mainly by memory capacity and by children's tendency to engage in multiple strategy use. However, children did not start to apply multiple strategies effectively until the end of Grade 2.     

Excitotoxic lesions restricted to the dorsal CA1 field of the hippocampus impair spatial memory and extinction learning in C57BL/6 mice

Recent studies in patients with hippocampal lesions have indicated that the degree of memory impairment is proportional to the extent of damage within the hippocampus. Particularly, patients with damage restricted to the CA1 field demonstrate moderate to severe anterograde amnesia with only slight retrograde amnesia. Comparable results are also seen in other species such as non-human primates and rats; however, the effect of selective damage to CA1 has not yet been characterized in mice. In the present study, we investigated the effects of excitotoxic (NMDA) lesions of dorsal CA1 on several aspects of learning and memory performance in mice. Our data indicate that dorsal CA1 lesioned mice are hyperactive upon exposure to a novel environment, have spatial working memory impairments in the Y-maze spontaneous alternation task, and display deficits in an 8-arm spatial discrimination learning task. Lesioned mice are able to acquire an operant lever-press task but demonstrate extinction learning deficits in this appetitive operant paradigm. Taken together, our results indicate that lesions to dorsal CA1 in mice induce selective learning and memory performance deficits similar to those observed in other species, and extend previous findings indicating that this region of the hippocampus is critically involved in the processing of spatial information and/or the processing of inhibitory responses.     

Jurors Report that Risk Measure Scores Matter in Sexually Violent Predator Trials,but that Other Factors Matter More

After deliberating to a verdict, jurors (N = 462) from 40 sexually violent predator (SVP) trials completed a questionnaire asking them to rate the extent to which risk measure scores, diagnoses, expert witness testimony, and offender characteristics described during the trials influenced their commitment decisions. Jurors reported that offenders' sexual offending history, failure to change, and lack of remorse had the strongest influence on their commitment decisions. They reported that testimony about risk instrument scores (e.g., Static-99) and psychopathy had less influence on their decisions, but those who did report being influenced by instrument results were especially likely to view the offender as being at a high risk for reoffending. Overall, findings suggest that SVP jurors view risk measure results as important, but not as important as other offender, offense, and testimony characteristics, including some that have limited relevance to recidivism risk. Thus, findings also suggest that experts may need to better educate jurors regarding factors that do and do not relate to recidivism risk. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Low neuroticism and high hedonistic traits for female internet child pornography consumers

Limited research has attempted to identify and understand the personality characteristics of female consumers of Internet child pornography (ICP). In the current study, female respondents (N = 162) from the Seigfried et al. study were analyzed to determine if personality characteristics differed between female users (n = 10, 6.2%) and female non-users (n = 152, 93.8%) of ICP. An exploratory backward stepwise (Wald) logistic regression revealed a predictive model, with female ICP consumers scoring: low on neuroticism, high on moral choice hedonism, and self-reporting a non-white racial identity. The relationship between female ICP consumption, neuroticism, hedonism, and race are discussed, along with the study's limitations and future research suggestions in the area of computer deviance.     

Open‐endedness,Schemas and Ontological Commitment

Second‐order axiomatizations of certain important mathematical theories—such as arithmetic and real analysis—can be shown to be categorical. Categoricity implies semantic completeness, and semantic completeness in turn implies determinacy of truth‐value. Second‐order axiomatizations are thus appealing to realists as they sometimes seem to offer support for the realist thesis that mathematical statements have determinate truth‐values. The status of second‐order logic is a controversial issue, however. Worries about ontological commitment have been influential in the debate. Recently, Vann McGee has argued that one can get some of the technical advantages of second‐order axiomatizations—categoricity, in particular—while walking free of worries about ontological commitment. In so arguing he appeals to the notion of an open‐ended schema—a schema that holds no matter how the language of the relevant theory is extended. Contra McGee, we argue that second‐order quantification and open‐ended schemas are on a par when it comes to ontological commitment.     

Evidence for the thalamic targets of the medial hypothalamic defensive system mediating emotional memory to predatory threats

Previous studies from our laboratory have documented that the medial hypothalamic defensive system is critically involved in processing actual and contextual predatory threats, and that the dorsal premammillary nucleus (PMd) represents the hypothalamic site most responsive to predatory threats. Anatomical findings suggest that the PMd is in a position to modulate memory processing through a projecting branch to specific thalamic nuclei, i.e., the nucleus reuniens (RE) and the ventral part of the anteromedial nucleus (AMv). In the present study, we investigated the role of these thalamic targets in both unconditioned (i.e., fear responses to predatory threat) and conditioned (i.e., contextual responses to predator-related cues) defensive behaviors. During cat exposure, all experimental groups exhibited intense defensive responses with the animals spending most of the time in the home cage displaying freezing behavior. However, during exposure to the environment previously associated with a cat, the animals with combined RE + AMv lesions, and to a lesser degree, animals with single AMv unilateral lesions, but not animals with single RE lesions, presented a reduction of contextual conditioned defensive responses. Overall, the present results provide clear evidence suggesting that the PMd’s main thalamic targets (i.e., the nucleus reuniens and the AMv) seem to be critically involved in the emotional memory processing related to predator cues.