Dear diary, is plastic better than paper? I can't remember: Comment on Green, Rafaeli, Bolger, Shrout, and Reis (2006)

In this commentary, the authors discuss the implications of A. S. Green, E. Rafaeli, N. Bolger, P. E. Shrout, and H. T. Reis's (2006) diary studies with respect to memory. Researchers must take 2 issues into account when determining whether paper-and-pencil or handheld electronic diaries gather more trustworthy data. The first issue is a matter of prospective memory, and the second is a matter of reconstructive memory. The authors review the research on these issues and conclude that regardless of the type of diary researchers use, several factors can conspire to produce prompt--but inaccurate--data.     

Gender, socioeconomic status, age, and jealousy: emotional responses to infidelity in a national sample

The authors used a representative national sample (N = 777) to test the evolutionary hypothesis that men would be more bothered by sexual infidelity and women by emotional infidelity, the Jealousy as a Specific Innate Module (JSIM) effect. Our alternative conceptualization of jealousy suggests that there are distinct emotional components of jealousy that did not evolve differently by gender. The authors looked for effects of age, socioeconomic status (SES), and type of measure (continuous or dichotomous) on jealousy. The authors did not find age or SES effects. Forced-choice items provided support for our alternative view; both genders showed more anger and blame over sexual infidelity but more hurt feelings over emotional infidelity. Continuous measures indicated more emotional response to sexual than emotional infidelity among both genders.     

Will Julia Roberts harm Nicole Kidman? Semantic priming effects during face naming

Three experiments are reported, which examine whether face naming is vulnerable to semantic competition in a similar way to object naming. Previous experiments with object naming have shown that a related prime picture presented 3 trials before a target picture results in an increase in error rate and naming latencies when compared to unrelated prime conditions. The experiments here use the same paradigm, with errors as the main dependent variable. In Experiment 1, the prime and target faces were from the same occupational category (e.g., politicians, actors), and in Experiment 2, the primes and target faces were also associated to each other. In Experiment 3, the prime was presented as a name to be read aloud. Unrelated filler stimuli intervened between prime and target. In all experiments, there was a reduction in target-naming errors in the related conditions, and in Experiment 3 this was shown to be largely a reduction in naming failures. The results suggest that related name representations for famous people are not activated in parallel and in competition, and that there is some evidence for a relatively long lasting facilitatory effect. These results require some modification to any serial account of face naming to differentiate it from the generally well-established serial account of object naming.     

Differential developmental trajectories for egocentric, environmental and intrinsic frames of reference in spatial memory

We studied the development of spatial frames of reference in children aged 3-6 years, who retrieved hidden toys from an array of identical containers bordered by landmarks under four conditions. By moving the child and/or the array between presentation and test, we varied the consistency of the hidden toy with (i) the body, and (ii) the testing room. The toy's position always remained consistent with (iii) the array and bordering landmarks. We found separate, additive performance advantages for consistency with body and room. These effects were already present at 3 years. A striking finding was that the room effect, which implies allocentric representations of the room and/or egocentric representations updated by self-motion, was much stronger in the youngest children than the body effect, which implies purely egocentric representations. Children as young as 3 years therefore had, and greatly favoured, spatial representations that were not purely egocentric. Viewpoint-independent recall based only on the array and bordering landmarks emerged at 5 years. There was no evidence that this later-developing ability, which implies object-referenced (intrinsic) representations, depended on verbal encodings. These findings indicate that core components of adult spatial competence, including parallel egocentric and nonegocentric representations of space, are present as early as 3 years. These are supplemented by later-developing object-referenced representations.     

Phonetic-semantic mediated false recognition: does activation fail to spread?

Spoken word recognition involves brief activation of candidate words. Six experiments examined whether words semantically related to phonologically activated words would be falsely recognized. Experiments 1 and 2 involved homophones as test words; Experiment 3 used strong associates for the semantic mediation link. Experiment 4 approximated lists of "strong" converging associates. Experiment 5 expanded the real time needed for word identification by using a gating procedure during study. In Experiment 6, the goal was to create a more sensitive test by requiring participants to indicate which of two lures (mediated or control) was "most likely" to be new. Recognition errors were sensitive to separate phonetic and semantic stages in the mediated chain; however, there was little evidence of mediated false recognition, despite expectations derived from common models of spreading activation.     

Disgust vulnerability and symptoms of contamination-based OCD: descriptive tests of incremental specificity

The present investigation examines the incremental association between disgust propensity and sensitivity and contamination-based obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms. Structural equation modeling in Study 1 indicated that general disgust was related to contamination fear even when controlling for negative affect in a nonclinical sample. Evidence was also found for a model in which the effect of negative affect on contamination fear is mediated by general disgust. Study 1 also showed that both disgust sensitivity and disgust propensity uniquely predicted contamination fear when controlling for negative affect. Growth curve analyses in Study 2 indicated that higher baseline contamination fear is associated with less reduction in contamination fear over a 6-week period as disgust sensitivity increases even when controlling for negative affect. Lastly, disgust propensity was associated with concurrent levels of excessive washing symptoms among patients with OCD in Study 3 when controlling for depression. Implications of these findings from nonclinical, analogue, and clinical samples for future research on the specificity of disgust-related vulnerabilities in the etiology of contamination concerns in OCD are discussed.     

Social group norms,school norms,and children's aggressive intentions

This study examined whether the effect of social group norms on 7‐ and 10‐year‐old children's aggression can be moderated or extinguished by contrary school norms. Children (n=384) participated in a simulation in which they were assigned membership in a social group for a drawing competition against an outgroup. Participants learnt that their group had a norm of inclusion, exclusion, or exclusion‐plus‐relational aggression, toward non‐group members, and that the school either had a norm of inclusion, or no such norm. Findings indicated that group norms influenced the participants' direct and indirect aggressive intentions, but that the school norm moderated the group norm effect, with the school's norm effect tending to be greater for indirect vs. direct aggression, males vs. females, and younger vs. older participants. Discussion focused on how school norms can be developed, endorsed, and presented so that they have their most lasting effect on children. Aggr. Behav. 36:195–204, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Confabulation and the Control of Recollection

It is argued that current models of memory do not adequately account for the confabulations that are found in the recall of certain neurological patients. A model of the relation between control processes and memory involved in recalling autobiographical episodes is put forward. It is based on detailed analysis of the protocols of healthy volunteers' autobiographical recollections of recent everyday events. It is held that damage to different components of the model fits with the different patterns of performance found in confabulators, and examples of the errors that confabulators make are discussed in terms of those made by normal subjects.