Chisholm on indirect attribution

Conclusion In The First Person Chisholm takes the primary form of belief to be belief about oneself. He argues that his account of indirect attribution makes it possible to explain belief about objects other than oneself. In this paper I have argued that this account either fails to explain plausible cases of belief about a particular object or it is circular. Chisholm has not shown, therefore, that we can attribute properties to others only indirectly by directly attributing properties to ourselves.     

Neuropsychological Evaluation of Everyday Memory

The evaluation of everyday memory (EM) was reviewed and reconceptualized. EM has established new objectives of study and the development of new methods to reach these objectives . At the basic level, this approach has already produced important discoveries and the development of new principles about memory and functioning. At the clinical level, this new area of investigation has resulted in evaluating deficits of EM, which is defined as what daily life functions remain impaired after a deficit pathology has occurred. A type of evaluation has evolved that is oriented toward treatment and extremely useful in designing rehabilitation programs for individuals with alterations in memory.     

Considering prior knowledge when using elaborative interrogation

Previous studies have promoted the use of elaborative interrogation (a “why”-questioning strategy) for the acquisition of factual information. One assumption in these studies is that prior knowledge influences when students will be able to use the strategy, with greater prior knowledge leading to higher recall performance. In the studies reviewed here, the effect of prior knowledge on strategy effectiveness was investigated. Specifically, students' performances were compared for materials about which they possessed substantial prior knowledge, little prior knowledge, inconsistent prior knowledge, or shared prior knowledge. In general, the data support the use of elaborative interrogation when studying alone or in dyads especially when learners possess some relevant prior knowledge about the new information.     

Social Comparison of Health Risks: Locus of Control,the Person-Positivity Bias,and Unrealistic Optimism1

People typically attribute lower health risks to themselves than to others, a phenomenon referred to as unrealistic optimism. The present study tested the person positivity bias as a previously unexamined explanation of the phenomenon and analyzed the relationship between unrealistic optimism and expectations of control. High-school students estimated their own and one of three other persons’(the average student's, a randomly chosen student's, or their best same-sex friend's) chances of getting health problems. They also filled out questionnaires measuring locus of control and health-protective behavior. In contrast with the person positivity explanation, unrealistic optimism was not restricted to the “average other” condition. However, unrealistic optimism was stronger in subjects with a more internal locus of control than in subjects with a rather external locus of control. An unpredicted effect of estimation order was observed: Unrealistic optimism was stronger in subjects who estimated the comparison person's risks first than in subjects who started with own risks. This effect can be understood in terms of Codol's observation that people perceive others as more similar to themselves than they themselves are to others.     

Freedom deprivation in prisons of Serbia

The subject of this research is the deprivation of freedom at two time points. A total of 490 convicts from open, semi‐open, and closed prisons participated in the research. Freedom deprivation intensity was determined by using the freedom deprivation scale (α = .93). The results of the research indicate that almost all the participants reported freedom deprivation. The prison type had an impact on freedom deprivation intensity, whereas an influence of the ward type on deprivation was not demonstrated. Freedom deprivation intensity was consistent from the turn of the century to the present day.     

The effect of category focus at encoding on category frequency estimation strategies

We investigated whether category focus at encoding affects how people estimate category frequencies. Participants in three experiments viewed items of various categories. They estimated category frequencies after categorizing them into relevant versus irrelevant categories (Experiments 1-2) or after categorizing versus memorizing them (Experiment 3). Verbal protocols (Experiments 2A and 2B), response latencies (Experiments 2A and 2B), frequency estimate changes (Experiment 2B), and the relationships between objective and estimated category frequencies and instance recall (Experiments 1-3) showed that the participants mainly used availability to estimate category frequencies after memorizing instances (Experiment 3) or after categorizing them into irrelevant categories (Experiments 1-2). After categorizing items into relevant categories, the participants relied more often on stored category frequency information (Experiments 1-3).     

Amygdala modulation of memory consolidation: interaction with other brain systems

There is a strong consensus that the amygdala is involved in mediating influences of emotional arousal and stress on learning and memory. There is extensive evidence that the basolateral amygdala (BLA) is a critical locus of integration of neuromodulatory influences regulating the consolidation of several forms of memory. Many drug and stress hormone influences converge in activating the release of norepinephrine (NE) within the BLA. Evidence from studies using in vivo microdialysis and high-performance liquid chromatography indicates that increases in amygdala NE levels assessed following inhibitory avoidance training correlate highly with subsequent retention. Other evidence indicates that NE influences on memory consolidation require muscarinic cholinergic activation within the BLA provided by projections from the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NB). Evidence from several experiments indicates that activation of the BLA plays an essential role in modulating memory consolidation processes involving other brain regions. These findings provide strong support for the hypothesis that the BLA plays a critical role in regulating the consolidation of lasting memories of significant experiences.