Interpretative memories of artworks

It is well known that memories of self‐relevant experiences are reconstructed over time. Artworks often require an elongated period of interpretative meaning‐making. Such works were therefore used to study temporal aspects of memory construction. In a longitudinal study, individuals' memories of artworks were examined to explore the idea that only with the passage of time would autobiographical memory and emotion be associated with thematic integration of the artwork memory. We also expected that integrated artwork memories would be more differentiated (in terms of number of details) than memories that were not integrated. Memories of artworks were collected from visitors to an art gallery in person as they left the gallery, and 5 months later in a phone interview. Participants were also asked, at both interviews, whether the memory recollection was associated with an autobiographical memory and with an emotion. Associations among the elements of autobiographical memory, emotion, differentiation, and integrated artwork memories were significant only at the time of the longer‐term recollection. The data suggest that, during an incubation period, these elements moved from a state of disconnection to interconnection.     

“I don't reject the Catholic Church—the Catholic Church rejects me”: How Twenty- and Thirty-somethings in Poland Re-evaluate their Religion

Abstract

Given measures of religious belief and participation, young adults in Poland are becoming increasingly disengaged from the Catholic Church. Broad theories of secularisation are less useful for making sense of this trend than an analysis of the role of Catholicism in Polish society in the twentieth century, which demonstrates the ways in which forms of belief are contingent upon wider social and political transformations. This article argues that, since 1989, attempts by the Catholic Church in Poland to influence public life through conservative social and political interventions have alienated young people who are looking for religious resources with which to make sense of their lives in a rapidly changing social milieu. Alongside disengagement from conservative, propositional forms of Catholic truth and rejection of direct authority, young people still possess ‘religious capital’ and look upon religious ideas to orientate their personal lives. However, disaffection from the propositional truths offered by the Church and disengagement from rituals and practices of ‘folk Catholicism’ at the level of the family and local parish have not led to widespread expressions of atheism among young people. Instead, there is a sacralisation of everyday life and there are attempts to use ‘religious capital’ to help young people make choices for life. The reconfigured ‘religious capital’ is often expressed through diffuse Catholic symbols and sentiment as well as the periodic use of major religious festivals as a means of finding access to some form of collective religious experience. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of these changes for the future religious landscape of Polish society.     

Pragmatic approach to decision making under uncertainty: The case of the disjunction effect

The disjunction effect (Tversky & Shafir, 1992 Tversky, A. and Shafir, E. 1992. The disjunction effect in choice under uncertainty. Psychological Science, 3: 305–309. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) occurs when decision makers prefer option x (versus y) when knowing that event A occurs and also when knowing that event A does not occur, but they refuse x (or prefer y) when not knowing whether or not A occurs. This form of incoherence violates Savage's (1954 Savage, L. J. 1954. The foundations of statistics, New York: Wiley.  [Google Scholar]) sure-thing principle, one of the basic axioms of the rational theory of decision making. The phenomenon was attributed to a lack of clear reasons for accepting an option (x) when subjects are under uncertainty. Through a pragmatic analysis of the task and a consequent reformulation of it, we show that the effect does not depend on the presence of uncertainty, but on the introduction of non-relevant goals into the text problem, in both the well-known Gamble problem and the Hawaii problem.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Johnson, J.V., & Hohansson, G. (Eds.)- (1991). The psychosocial work environment: Work organization, democratization and health. Essays in memory of Bertil Gar dell. New York: Baywood. pp. 335. ISBN 0-89503-078-0 (hardback). ISBN 0-89503-077-2 (paperback).

Shackel, B., & Richardson, S. (Eds.) (1991). Human factors of informatics usability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 438. ISBN 0-521-36570-8. Hardback £35.00

Frese, M., & Brodbeck, F.C. (1989). Computer in Büro und Verwaltung. Berlin: Springer. Pp. 237. ISBN: 3-540-50774-4. DM 88. Published in German.     

The COMT Val/Met polymorphism is associated with reading‐related skills and consistent patterns of functional neural activation

In both children and adults there is large variability in reading skill, with approximately 5–10% of individuals characterized as having reading disability; these individuals struggle to learn to read despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. Although it is well established that a substantial portion of this variability is attributed to the genetic differences between individuals, specifics of the connections between reading and the genome are not understood. This article presents data that suggest that variation in the COMT gene, which has previously been associated with variation in higher‐order cognition, is associated with reading and reading‐related skills, at the level of both brain and behavior. In particular, we found that the COMT Val/Met polymorphism at rs4680, which results in the substitution of the ancestral Valine (Val) by Methionine (Met), was associated with better performance on a number of critical reading measures and with patterns of functional neural activation that have been linked to better readers. We argue that this polymorphism, known for its broad effects on cognition, may modulate (likely through frontal lobe function) reading skill.     

Religion and the judgement of obsessionality

Abstract

Ninety-six lay participiants read case vignettes of two OCD sufferers, one high on religious activity and one low on religious activity. Possible confounding factors were balanced. Obsessionality and psychological symptoms were seen as significantly more likely in the OCD sufferer with a high level of religious activity, compared to the OCD sufferer with a low level of religious activity, though sadness and tension were not. Limitations of the study are discussed, as are possible interpretations of the findings.     

Recognition memory for emotional faces in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: An event-related potential study

ABSTRACT

This study examined the temporal course of emotional face recognition in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Patients and healthy controls (HC) performed a face recognition task, giving old/new responses to previously studied and novel faces displaying a negative or neutral expression. In aMCI patients, recognition accuracy was preserved for negative faces. Event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed disease-related changes in early perceptual components but not in ERP indices of explicit recognition. Specifically, aMCI patients showed impaired recognition effects for negative faces on the amplitudes of N170 and P2, suggesting deficient memory-related processing of negative faces at the stage of structural encoding and during an early recognition stage at which faces are individuated, respectively. Moreover, while a right-lateralized emotion effect specifically observed for correctly recognized faces on the amplitude of N170 was absent in aMCI, a similar emotion effect for successfully recognized faces on P2 was preserved in the patients, albeit with a different distribution. This suggests that in aMCI facilitated processing of successfully recognized emotional faces starts later in the processing sequence. Nonetheless, an early frontal old/new effect confined to negative faces and a parietal old/new effect unaffected by facial emotion were observed in both groups. This indicates that familiarity and conceptual priming processes may specifically contribute to recognition of negative faces in older adults and that aMCI patients can recruit the same retrieval mechanisms as controls, despite disease-related changes on early perceptual ERP components.     

Application of Achievement Goal Theory in an Urban Youth Tennis Setting

The purpose of this study was to examine the motivational responses of tennis players in relation to their goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate. Youngsters completed a survey with tennis-specific measures of goal orientations, motivational climate, attitudes toward tennis, their instructor, their fellow players and sportspersonship behaviors. Results support Nicholls' goal perspective theory. Moderated regression analysis suggested that positive perceptions of a task-involving climate and negative perceptions of an ego-involving motivational climate predicted players' attitudes toward sportpersonship, their instructor, and fellow players. Attitudes toward tennis were predicted by task orientation. Canonical analyses further suggested that perceptions of the climate were most strongly related to attitudes.     

We are human,they are not: Driving forces behind outgroup dehumanisation and the humanisation of the ingroup

Mostly invigorated by infrahumanisation theory, our knowledge on processes of dehumanisation in intergroup relations has grown considerably in the last decade. Building on these earlier endeavours, the present chapter reviews some recent empirical extensions that highlight the importance of differentiating between ingroup humanisation and outgroup dehumanisation because they are often moderated by specific variables. The role of these separate processes is discussed as a function of the main structural elements that define intergroup behaviour; that is, the defining boundaries of the groups, the relation between the groups at hand, and the ideologies of its members. Finally, the role of the different senses of humanness is discussed, suggesting that the folk conception of humanness differs between cultures.