Within-session spacing improves delayed recall in children

Multiple retrievals of a memory over a spaced manner improve long-term memory performance in infants, children, younger and older adults; however, few studies have examined spacing effects with young school-age children. To expand the understanding of the spacing benefit in children, the current study presented weakly associated English word-pairs to children aged 7–11 and cued their recall two times immediately (massed), after a delay of 5 or 10 items (spaced) or not at all (control). After this encoding session with or without two retrievals, participants were tested two times for memory of all word-pairs: immediately and 30 minutes after the encoding session. Multiple retrievals significantly improved memory on the tests. However, words repeated in a spaced design were remembered at higher rates than those that were massed, while gap size between repetitions (5 or 10) did not differentially impact performance. The data show that a within-session spacing strategy can benefit children's ability to remember word-pairs after 30 minutes. Thus, asking students to recall what they have learned within a lesson is a technique that can be used in a classroom to improve long-term recall.     

The Existential Sources of Phenomenology: Heidegger on Formal Indication

Abstract: This article contributes to the contemporary debate regarding the young Heidegger's method of formal indication. Theodore Kisiel argues that this method constitutes a radical break with Husserl—a rejection of phenomenological reflection that paves the way to the non‐reflective approach of the Beiträge. Against this view, Steven Crowell argues that formal indication is continuous with Husserlian phenomenology—a refinement of phenomenological reflection that reveals its existential sources. I evaluate this debate and adduce further considerations in favor of Crowell's view. To do so, I analyze the young Heidegger's account of phenomenological communication and argue that it further reflects the continuity that Crowell identifies: as he does with reflection, Heidegger refines Husserl's account of phenomenological communication and sheds light on its existential sources.     

Book Reviews

The Cambridge Companion to Marx Edited by Terrell Carver Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 357. ISBN 0–521–36625–9 £40.00 hbk.

Paul Ricoeur By Stephen H. Clark Routledge, 1990. Pp. 216. ISBN 0–415–02309–2. £30.00 hbk. £9.99 pbk.

The Analysis of Political Structure By David Easton Routledge, 1990. Pp. xv + 336 ISBN 0–415–90310–6. £35.00 hbk.

Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism By Owen Flanagan Harvard University Press, 1991. Pp. 393. ISBN 0–674–93218–8. £27.95.

God and Greek Philosophy By L. P. Gerson Routledge, 1990. Pp. xi + 340. ISBN 0–415–02219–3. £35.00.

Scepticism By Christopher Hookway Routledge, 1990. Pp. xii + 251. ISBN 0–415–03396–9. £35.00 hbk.

Russell, Idealism and the Emergence of Analytic Philosophy By Peter Hylton Clarendon Press, 1990. Pp. 420. ISBN 0–19–824626–9. £50 hbk. £15.95 pbk

The Poetics of Imagining: from Husserl to Lyotard By Richard Kearney Harper Collins, 1991. Pp. xiii + 234. ISBN 04–445–4503. £30.00.

The Language of Art History Edited by Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 255. ISBN 0–521–35384‐X. £32.50.

Newman After a Hundred Years Edited by Ian Ker and Alan G. Hill Clarendon Press, 1990. Pp. xvi + 470. ISBN 0–19–812–8916 £45.00

Inference to the Best Explanation By Peter Lipton Routledge, 1991. Pp. x + 194. ISBN 0–415–05886–4. £35.00 hbk.

Dretske and His Critics Edited by Brian McLaughlin Blackwell, 1991. Pp. xvii + 231. ISBN 1–55786–198–6. £40.00.

A History and Interpretation of the Logic of Hegel By Giacomo Rinaldi The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. Pp. 525. $99.95 hbk.

The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume By Galen Strawson Clarendon Press, 1989 (1992 issued in paperback with corrections). Pp. xiv + 291. ISBN 0–19–824038–4. £14.95 pbk.

Analysis and Metaphysics By P. F. Strawson Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. 152. ISBN 0–19–875517–6. £22.50 hbk; £7.95 pbk.

Physics and Metaphysics: Theories of Space and Time By Jennifer Trusted Routledge, 1991. Pp. xii + 210. ISBN 0–415–05948–8. £30.00.

Political Theory and Postmodernism By Stephen K. White Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 153. ISBN 0–521–40122–4. £25.00 hbk. ISBN 0–521–40948–9. £9.95 pbk.

Nietzsche's Philosophy of Art By Julian Young Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiii + 170. ISBN 0–521–51124–6. £27.95.     

Psychological Treatment Improves Hemoglobin A1c Outcomes in Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Adolescents diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus often exhibit reduced adherence to their medical regimen and poor glycemic control. A retrospective study examined longitudinal hemoglobin A1c (HgbA1c) outcomes for adolescent patients referred to the psychology service embedded within an endocrinology clinic. Three patient groups were examined: (1) Treatment: 59 adolescents referred who engaged in psychotherapy; (2) No Treatment: 40 adolescents referred yet failed to initiate psychotherapy; (3) Control: 58 adolescents not referred for treatment and matched on demographics to the two treatment groups. Over 1 year, the Treatment group had a sustained decrease in HgbA1c while the No Treatment and Control groups had an overall increase in HgbA1c. At study end, the Treatment group had HgbA1c values that were not significantly different from patients who were not considered in need of psychological treatment (Control). Adolescents that utilized the pediatric psychology service saw decreased HgbA1c values over time.     

On the nature of the delayed “inhibitory” Cueing effects generated by uninformative arrows at fixation

When the interval between a spatially uninformative arrow and a visual target is short (<500 ms), response times (RTs) are fastest when the arrow points to the target. When this interval exceeds 500 ms, there is a near-universal absence of an effect of the arrow on RTs. Contrary to this expected pattern of results, Taylor and Klein (J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 26:1639–1656, 2000) observed that RTs were slowest when a to-be-localized visual target occurred in the direction of a fixated arrow presented 1 s earlier (i.e., an “inhibitory” Cueing effect; ICE). Here we examined which factor(s) may have allowed the arrow to generate an ICE. Our experiments indicated that the ICE was a side effect of subthreshold response activation attributable to a task-induced association between the arrow and a keypress response. Because the cause of this ICE was more closely related to subthreshold keypress activation than to oculomotor activation, we considered that the effect might be more similar to the negative compatibility effect (NCE) than to inhibition of return (IOR). This similarity raises the possibility that classical IOR, when caused by a spatially uninformative peripheral onset event and measured by a keypress response to a subsequent onset, might represent, in part, another instance of an NCE. Serendipitously, we discovered that context (i.e., whether an uninformative peripheral onset could occur at the time of an uninformative central arrow) ultimately determined whether the “inhibitory” aftermath of automatic response activation would affect output or input pathways.     

The positive and negative semantic dimensions of relationship satisfaction

Semantic differential items were reconfigured to assess relationship satisfaction across separate positive and negative attitude dimensions. Study 1 (N = 1,656) supported a 2‐factor model for the Positive and Negative Semantic Differential (PN–SMD), as well as its convergent, criterion‐related, and incremental validity over the 16‐item Couples Satisfaction Index (CSI; J. L. Funk & R. D. Rogge, 2007) using known correlates of relationship satisfaction as criteria. Study 2 (N = 89) replicated the convergent, criterion‐related, and incremental validity findings of Study 1 using different criterion measures, the CSI, a bipolar semantic differential measure designed for assessing relationship satisfaction, and an existing 2‐dimensional measure of relationship satisfaction. The authors demonstrated across studies that the PN–SMD captures criterion‐relevant information about ambivalence versus indifference toward the relationship—associations that are only detectable when using a 2‐dimensional satisfaction measure.     

Testing the dorsal stream attention hypothesis: Electrophysiological correlates and the effects of ventral stream damage

The roles of dorsal and ventral processing streams in visual orienting and conscious perception were examined in two experiments. The first employed high density EEG with source localization. The second comprised a neuropsychological case study. Visual orienting was assessed with an attention procedure, where peripheral letters cued participants towards a target location. In the perception procedure participants responded to the same letters by performing an explicit conscious discrimination. In Experiment 1, the peripheral letters elicited rapid dorsal stream activation in the attention procedure, and this activation preceded top-down enhancement of target processing in occipital cortex. In the perception procedure early ventral stream activation was seen. In addition, peripheral letters elicited an “early directing attention negativity” (EDAN) over parietal recording sites in the attention procedure, but not in the perception procedure. In Experiment 2, a patient with a bilateral ventral stream lesion but preserved dorsal stream function showed clear disruption to performance in the perception procedure, whilst exhibiting a normal visual orienting effect in the attention procedure. Taken together these findings (1) highlight the distinct roles of the dorsal and ventral streams in attention and perception, and (2) suggest how these streams might interact, via reentrant effects of attention on perceptual processing.     

Assessing visual search performance differences between Transportation Security Administration Officers and nonprofessional visual searchers

Some visual searches depend upon accuracy (e.g., radiology, airport security screening), and it is important for both theoretical and applied reasons to understand what factors best predict performance. The current study administered a visual search task to both professional (Transportation Security Administration Officers) and nonprofessional (members of Duke University) searchers to examine group differences in which factors predict accuracy. Search speed—time taken to terminate search—was the primary predictor for nonprofessional searchers (accounting for 59% of their accuracy variability) and for the least experienced professional searchers (37% of variability). In contrast, consistency—how similarly (in terms of search speed) an individual spent searching from trial to trial—was the primary predictor for the most experienced professional visual searchers (39% of variability). These results inform cognitive theory by illuminating factors that differentially affect search performance between participants, and real-world issues by identifying search behaviours (consistency in particular) important to experienced professional searchers.     

The role of eye fixations in concentration and amplification effects during multiple object tracking

When tracking spatially extended objects in a multiple object tracking task, attention is preferentially directed to the centres of those objects (attentional concentration), and this effect becomes more pronounced as object length increases (attentional amplification). However, it is unclear whether these effects depend on differences in attentional allocation or differences in eye fixations. We addressed this question by measuring eye fixations in a dual-task paradigm that required participants to track spatially extended objects, while simultaneously detecting probes that appeared at the centres or near the endpoints of objects. Consistent with previous research, we observed concentration and amplification effects: Probes at the centres of objects were detected more readily than those near their endpoints, and this difference increased with object length. Critically, attentional concentration was observed when probes were equated for distance from fixation during free viewing, and concentration and amplification were observed without eye movements during strict fixation. We conclude that these effects reflect the prioritization of covert attention to particular spatial regions within extended objects, and we discuss the role of eye fixations during multiple object tracking.