Neuroimaging evidence for agenda-dependent monitoring of different features during short-term source memory tests

A short-term source monitoring procedure with functional magnetic resonance imaging assessed neural activity when participants made judgments about the format of 1 of 4 studied items (picture, word), the encoding task performed (cost, place), or whether an item was old or new. The results support findings from long-term memory studies showing that left anterior ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) is engaged when people make source attributions about reflectively generated information (cognitive operations, conceptual features). The findings also point to a role for right lateral PFC in attention to perceptual features and/or familiarity in making source decisions. Activity in posterior regions also differed depending on what was evaluated. These results provide neuroimaging evidence for theoretical approaches emphasizing that agendas influence which features are monitored during remembering (e.g., M. K. Johnson, S. Hashtroudi, & D. S. Lindsay, 1993). They also support the hypothesis that some of the activity in left lateral PFC and posterior regions associated with remembering specific information is not unique to long-term memory but rather is associated with agenda-driven source monitoring processes common to working memory and long-term memory.     

Jewish politics and the press: The ``reception' of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (1860)

The article is a case-study that examines the way in which theJewish press in Europe and North America reacted to the establishment ofthe Alliance. Given that the mid-nineteenth century is often regarded as ahigh point in the development of the integrationist ideology among themodernizing sections of European Jewry, the creation of the Alliance wasbound to create controversy. Its stated goal was to create ``a link, asolidarity from country to country embracing in its vast network all that isJewish'' – an aspiration that could obviously be interpreted as runningcounter to what is often termed the emancipationist ``bargain'' orcontract. Moreover, its overt appeal to the values of the Frenchrevolution and to ``universal reason'' were hardly calculated to appeal tothe Orthodox camp within the Jewish world; and, likewise, could wellhave rendered the entire subject untouchable in the autocratic Habsburgand Romanov empires. In reality, though, the foundation of the Alliance was generallywelcomed in the Jewish press, with particular enthusiasm beingdemonstrated not only by the journals in France but also by those inRussia. The English-language press in both Britain and the United Statesreacted more soberly (was there not a danger of over-centralisation anddomination from Paris?), but it still welcomed the initiative. Majorcriticism, though, came from the German-language journals of LudwigPhilippson in Saxony and David Einhorn in Baltimore, who both warnedthat such an international political organization would inevitably inflameGentile fears of a ``secret pact'' directed by the Jews againstChristendom. This opposition, in turn, met with a vigorous response onthe pages of other journals, demonstrating to what an extent by 1860 theJewish press, newly established in many countries, had come to constitutea forum spanning linguistic and geographic frontiers.     

An assessment of the fakeability of self-report and implicit personality measures

Researchers are focusing on developing implicit measures of personality to address concerns related to the faking of self-report measures. The present study examined the validity and fakeability of Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures of personality self-concept in a repeated-measures design (N = 33). People’s predictions about how they represented themselves on the measures were also assessed. Results indicated that participants were able fake self-report measures when instructed to do so and that they could accurately predict how they represented themselves on these measures. Participants were also able to fake an IAT measure of Extraversion, but were unable to fake an IAT measure of Conscientiousness or predict how they represented themselves on either IAT measure.     

Private Interests Count Too

Along with concerns about the deleterious effects of politically driven government intervention on science are the intrusion of private sector interests into the conduct of research and the reporting of its results. Scientists are generally unprepared for the challenges posed by private interests seeking to advance their economic, political, or ideological agendas. They must educate and prepare themselves for assaults on scientific freedom, not because it is a legal right, but rather because social progress depends on it.

Romance,Sexual Attraction,and Women’s Political Ambition: Initial Findings from Two Experiments

This study develops and begins to test the hypothesis that considerations of romance and sexual attractiveness may impede women’s expression of political ambition (in the sense of either interest in holding public office or willingness to disclose such interest). As this is a very new area of research, and as the subject is difficult to test, this study does not draw firm conclusions, but the initial data results suggest at least some support for the hypothesis. It does seem from these two experiments that politics makes one less popular as a date or mate choice, and that women who hypothetically hold office would be less likely to reveal that fact to a potential sexual or romantic partner. Further research is needed to both develop the measurements for this exciting new area of study and confirm these initial results.     

Equivalence of paper and pencil vs Internet forms of the ZKPQ-50-CC in Spanish and French samples

This study was designed to check for the equivalence of the ZKPQ-50-CC (Spanish and French versions) through Internet on-line (OL) and paper and pencil (PP) answer format. Differences in means and deviations were significant in some scales, but effect sizes are minimal except for Sociability in the Spanish sample. Alpha reliabilities are also very similar in both versions with no significant differences between formats. A robust factorial structure was found for the two formats and the average congruency coefficients were 0.98. The goodness-of-fit indexes obtained by confirmatory factorial analysis are very similar to those obtained in the ZKPQ-50-CC validation study and they do not differ between the two formats. The multi-group analysis confirms the equivalence among the OL–PP formats in both countries. These results in general support the validity and reliability of the Internet as a method in investigations using the ZKPQ-50-CC.