Motor and visual codes interact to facilitate visuospatial memory performance

The spatial working memory system constantly updates spatial representations and many studies have focused on the underlying principles of the encoding and maintenance of visual information. Here we investigated the question of how the production of actions influences spatial working memory. Participants were given a task that required concurrent maintenance of two spatial arrays, one encoded by visual observation accompanied with pointing movements, the other by only visual observation. Across two experiments, movement during encoding was found to facilitate recognition of spatial arrays in a load-dependent manner. The results suggest an action-based encoding principle within the working memory system, and possible underlying action-related mechanisms are discussed.     

Consumer decision making and aging: A commentary from a public policy/marketing perspective

Efforts to assist older adults with cognitive deficits can take one of three paths: law, education or marketing. Legal protections have proved insufficient. Government educational efforts are typically dryly factual and likely to go unheeded. With the growing size of the older adult market, the independent efforts of both for-profit and social marketers to develop products and services that can help this population remain functionally healthy and independent are likely to be successful. Both governments and insurance companies should be motivated to help subsidize these entrepreneurial efforts given the considerably higher costs of caring for the elderly in an institution.     

Concurrent working memory load can facilitate selective attention: evidence for specialized load

Load theory predicts that concurrent working memory load impairs selective attention and increases distractor interference (N. Lavie, A. Hirst, J. W. de Fockert, & E. Viding). Here, the authors present new evidence that the type of concurrent working memory load determines whether load impairs selective attention or not. Working memory load was paired with a same/different matching task that required focusing on targets while ignoring distractors. When working memory items shared the same limited-capacity processing mechanisms with targets in the matching task, distractor interference increased. However, when working memory items shared processing with distractors in the matching task, distractor interference decreased, facilitating target selection. A specialized load account is proposed to describe the dissociable effects of working memory load on selective processing depending on whether the load overlaps with targets or with distractors.     

MEMORY ALTERING TECHNOLOGIES AND THE CAPACITY TO FORGIVE: WESTWORLD AND VOLF IN DIALOGUE

I explore the impact of memory altering technologies in the science fiction drama (2016–2020) in order to show that unreconciled altered traumatic memory may lead to a dystopian breakdown of society. I bring Miroslav Volf's theological perspectives on memory into conversation with the plot of Westworld in order to reveal connections between memory altering technologies and humanity's responsibility to remember rightly. Using Volf's theology of remembering as an interpretive lens, I analyze characters’ inability to remember rightly while recalling partial memories of their trauma. In virtue of this examination, I contend that memory altering technologies may inhibit individuals from relational processes of healing, such as forgiveness. Consequently, I argue that this study leads to a richer understanding of the potential that memory altering technologies have for undermining humanity's ability to interact in a relational capacity, specifically in terms of forgiveness.     

Reliability and validity of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List - Revised

A recent factor analysis of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL) changed the Anxiety, Depression, and Hostility scales from bipolar to unipolar scales and added two new scales: Positive Affect and Sensation Seeking. Internal reliability of the MAACL-R scales, computed for normal and patient samples, was adequate for state and trait forms except for Sensation Seeking. Test-retest reliability in college students was higher for the trait form with retest intervals of from 2 to 8 weeks than for the state form with retest intervals of from 2 to 5 days. The pattern of correlations among self-, peer, and counselor ratings and the MAACL-R scales for normal and patient samples indicates improved discriminant validity and equally good convergent validity as the old scales. The use of standard scores that are indexed to the number of items checked reduced scale intercorrelations by controlling the acquiescence set.The financial support of the Weldon Springs Endowment Fund, University of Missouri at Kansas City, toward the completion of this research project is gratefully acknowledged.     

Adult maturational processes and the facilitating environment

The psychoanalytic theory of religion has been seriously limited in its development, largely owing to Freud's emphasis on religion's neurotic elements and an overemphasis on the infantile origins of religious development. This paper offers a conceptual framework and advances the thesis, based on contemporary psychoanalytic, developmental theory, that 1) Erikson's concept of epigenesis has applicability across the life span; 2) that beyond-the-self identity is constituent to human maturation and self-completion; 3) that successful adult maturation requires a mirroring-facilitating environment; and 4) that religious values, meanings, images, and communities play an essential role-as-elements of the facilitating environment of later life.     

Spatial frequency and attention: Effects of level-, target-, and location-repetition on the processing of global and local forms

Is attentional selection between local and global forms based on spatial frequency? This question was examined by having subjects identify local or global forms of stimuli that had been “contrast balanced,” a technique that eliminates low spatial frequencies. Response times (RTs) to global (but not local) forms were slowed for contrast-balanced stimuli, suggesting that low spatial frequencies mediate the global RT advantage typically reported. In contrast, the beneficial effect of having targets appear at the same, as opposed to a different, level as that on the immediately preceding trial was unaffected by contrast balancing. This suggests that attentional selection between different levels of structure is not based on spatial frequency. The data favor an explanation in terms of “priming,” rather than in terms of adjustments in the diameter of an attentional “spotlight.”