The influence of training task stimuli on transfer effects of working memory training in aging

IntroductionWorking memory (WM) training is known to produce benefits in older adults’ WM. Transfer effects to untrained abilities, however, remain controversial and several aspects are thought to influence the generalization of benefits, including the kind of stimuli used in the training tasks, an aspect rarely addressed in older adults.ObjectiveThe present study had two aims: (1) to test the efficacy of a visuospatial WM training procedure in older adults, in terms of specific and transfer effects; (2) to examine in two experiments whether the type of stimuli used in the training task influences the training's effectiveness. Experiment 1 adopted images with a neutral valence while experiment 2 used emotionally positive images based on evidence that older adults tend to remember positive stimuli better. In both experiments, specific training-related gains in a visuospatial WM task (the criterion task) and transfer effects on measures of verbal WM, visuospatial short-term memory, processing speed and reasoning were examined. Maintenance of training benefits was also assessed at an 8-month follow-up.MethodSeventy older adult (63–75 years old) volunteers (35 for experiment 1, and 35 for experiment 2) were randomly assigned to a training or active control group. The same visuospatial WM training procedure was used in both experiments, manipulating only the type of stimuli used (neutral in experiment 1 and emotionally positive in experiment 2).ResultsIn both experiments, only trained participants showed specific benefits in the WM criterion task. These gains were also maintained at the follow-up, but no transfer effects were identified.ConclusionOverall, our findings using the present visuospatial WM training paradigm suggest that it is less effective, in terms of transfer effects, than the same paradigm administered verbally in a previous study, regardless of the type of stimuli used in WM training tasks (neutral or emotionally positive stimuli).     

Self-Esteem and Negative Affect as Moderators of Sociocultural Influences on Body Dissatisfaction,Strategies to Decrease Weight,and Strategies to Increase Muscles Among Adolescent Boys and Girls

The study was conducted to examine the impact of sociocultural influences and the moderating role of self-esteem and negative affect on body dissatisfaction and body change strategies for both adolescent boys and girls. Surveys designed to assess body dissatisfaction, body change strategies to decrease weight and increase muscles, perceived sociocultural pressures to lose weight and increase muscles, self-esteem and negative affect were administered to 587 boys and 598 girls aged between 11 and 15 years. The majority of respondents were from Anglo-Australian backgrounds (83%) with the remainder being from Asian and European non-English-speaking backgrounds. The sociocultural influences were found to significantly predict body dissatisfaction and body change strategies for both boys and girls. However, in the case of boys, self-esteem was found to moderate the impact of the sociocultural influences in predicting body change strategies. It was primarily the boys with low self-esteem who were more affected by the sociocultural pressures whereas the girls were affected independently of their self-esteem. Negative affect was also found to play a moderating role on some of the sociocultural influences in predicting strategies to increase muscles. Both boys and girls with higher levels of negative affect were more likely to be affected by sociocultural messages directed at increasing muscles. The results from the present study demonstrate that as well as examining the direct influence of sociocultural pressures, it is also important to examine how these may be moderated by self-esteem and negative affect.     

A Comparison of Mood and Quality of Life Among People with Progressive Neurological Illnesses and Their Caregivers

The current study was designed to investigate differences in mood and a range of QOL domains among 423 patients and 335 caregivers of people with motor neurone disease (MND), Huntington’s disease (HD), Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis (MS). Patients and caregivers completed an anonymous questionnaire that evaluated their mood (anxiety, depression, fatigue, confusion) and QOL (physical, psychological, social, environment). The results demonstrated that caregivers of people with MND and HD experienced most problems with their mood and QOL compared to caregivers of people in the other illness groups. There were few differences in mood or QOL between patients and caregivers. Patients generally showed greater confusion, physical impairment, and psychological maladjustment. The findings suggest that educational and intervention programs need to be developed to help both patients and their caregivers to adjust and cope with these illnesses, particularly caregivers of people with MND and HD.     

Monitoring eye movements while searching for affective faces

A single experiment is reported in which we provide a novel analysis of eye movements during visual search to disentangle the contributions of unattended guidance and focal target processing to visual search performance. This technique is used to examine the controversial claim that unattended affective faces can guide attention during search. Results indicated that facial expression influences how efficiently the target was fixated for the first time as a function of set size. However, affective faces did not influence how efficiently the target was identified as a function of set size after it was first fixated. These findings suggest that, in the present context, facial expression can influence search before the target is attended and that the present measures are able to distinguish between the guidance of attention by targets and the processing of targets within the focus of attention.     

Source monitoring: The importance of feature binding at encoding

This paper is based on the source monitoring framework (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993) and provides a review of data that suggests the involvement of working memory encoding processes in source monitoring tasks. Source monitoring refers to diverse mental processes used to distinguish the origin of our memories. A key assumption is that, when people encode an event, component processes of working memory play a crucial role in maintaining and binding the various features (e.g., semantic, perceptual) of an event together. It follows that success on a working memory binding test should be a good predictor of proficiency on a long-term source monitoring task, and that individual differences in working memory binding ability should account for the different pattern of source monitoring errors. Interestingly, these predictions have not been directly tested.     

Which body features are associated with female adolescents’ body dissatisfaction? A cross-cultural study in Australia,China and Malaysia

This study investigated how dissatisfaction with various aspects of the body is associated with overall body dissatisfaction among female adolescents in Western and Asian cultures. Data used in the study were obtained from 58 Malaysian Malays, 95 Malaysian Chinese, 242 Chinese from China, and 81 non-Asian Australians aged 12–19 years (M = 15.72, SD = 1.72) who were recruited from high schools. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing dissatisfaction with their body overall, and dissatisfaction with varying aspects of their body. Malaysian Chinese were the most dissatisfied with their bodies. After controlling for body mass index (BMI), age and dissatisfaction with weight/shape, upper, middle and lower body, and muscles, dissatisfaction with the face was positively correlated with overall body dissatisfaction among Malaysian Malays and Australians. These findings demonstrate the importance of using assessment measures that address all possible areas of body focus as well as being tailored to the relevant culture.     

Biopsychosocial correlates of weight status perception in Australian adolescents

This study examined the utility of the biopsychosocial model to predict accuracy of weight status perception among Australian adolescents. The factors included in this framework were: age, gender, and BMI-z (biological factors); satisfaction with body weight and shape (psychological factors); socioeconomic status, peer weight (social factors). Cross-sectional data, including measured height and weight, and self-reported weight status, was obtained from 2954 adolescents (mean age = 14.6, 56% male) who participated in the It's Your Move! study. Accuracy of weight status perception was associated with gender, BMI-z, SES, and weight and shape satisfaction. Gender differences in weight status perception were moderated by satisfaction with weight. In boys, weight satisfaction was associated with perceived healthy weight; in girls, it was associated with perceived healthy weight and underweight. Moderately overweight adolescents are most at risk of underestimating their weight status and could benefit from education about the boundaries of the healthy weight range.     

Intuitive Heuristics Linking Perfectionism, Control, and Beliefs Regarding Body Shape in Eating Disorders

A number of correlational studies have established a clear association between perfectionism, control and beliefs regarding body shape in eating disorders (EDs). The aim of this study is to test the effectiveness of the above- mentioned associations in exploring the presence of intuitive heuristics. Intuitive heuristics can be conceived as as mental shortcuts, cognitive processes that are highly susceptible to irrational biases. Forty one non clinical female controls and 27 in-patient females with an ED diagnosis participated in an experimental task that tested whether participants would show an intuitive rather than a logically based link between perfectionism in different domains (study, work, hygiene) and a thin body shape. In the healthy female participants the occurrence of proposed link was noted in the hygiene domain only, while ED participants showed this intuitive association in all the domains explored: study, work, and hygiene. The study confirms in clinical ED sample a wider employment of heuristics associating perfectionism and thinness that is based on purely intuitive irrational reasoning.     

Semantic significance: a new measure of feature salience

According to the feature-based model of semantic memory, concepts are described by a set of semantic features that contribute, with different weights, to the meaning of a concept. Interestingly, this theoretical framework has introduced numerous dimensions to describe semantic features. Recently, we proposed a new parameter to measure the importance of a semantic feature for the conceptual representation—that is, semantic significance. Here, with speeded verification tasks, we tested the predictive value of our index and investigated the relative roles of conceptual and featural dimensions on the participants’ performance. The results showed that semantic significance is a good predictor of participants’ verification latencies and suggested that it efficiently captures the salience of a feature for the computation of the meaning of a given concept. Therefore, we suggest that semantic significance can be considered an effective index of the importance of a feature in a given conceptual representation. Moreover, we propose that it may have straightforward implications for feature-based models of semantic memory, as an important additional factor for understanding conceptual representation.