Episodic feeling-of-knowing accuracy and cued recall in the elderly: evidence for double dissociation involving executive functioning and processing speed

This research investigated adult age differences in a metamemory monitoring task-episodic feeling-of-knowing (FOK) and in an episodic memory task-cued recall. Executive functioning and processing speed were examined as mediators of these age differences. Young and elderly adults were administered an episodic FOK task, a cued recall task, executive tests and speed tests. Age-related decline was observed on all the measures. Correlation analyses revealed a pattern of double dissociation which indicates a specific relationship between executive score and FOK accuracy, and between speed score and cued recall. When executive functioning and processing speed were evaluated concurrently on FOK and cued recall variables, hierarchical regression analyses showed that executive score was a better mediator of age-related variance in FOK, and that speed score was the better mediator of age-related variance in cued recall.     

Different cognitive processes in two image-scanning paradigms

Mental image scanning is generally assumed to be a single process that allows people to shift attention across visualized objects. However, this implicit assumption is open to question. We report a set of three experiments based on the tasks originally designed by Kosslyn, Ball, and Reiser (1978) and Finke and Pinker (1982). Participants scanned the identical images of an array of dots in the two tasks. Nevertheless, the participants required more time to shift their focus over the imaged stimulus in the Kosslyn et al. (1978) paradigm. Moreover, correlational analyses revealed no consistent relationship between the slopes of the increases in scanning times with increasing distances in the two paradigms. We conclude that in the Kosslyn et al. (1978) paradigm, the participants draw primarily on transformational processes to scan, whereas in the Finke and Pinker (1982) paradigm, they draw primarily on attentional processes. Both processes, transforming the image and shifting an attention window, produce linear increases in time with increases in distance, but for different reasons.     

Chances and frequencies in probabilistic reasoning: rejoinder to Hoffrage,Gigerenzer, Krauss,and Martignon

Do individuals unfamiliar with probability and statistics need a specific type of data in order to draw correct inferences about uncertain events? Girotto and Gonzalez (Cognition 78 (2001) 247) showed that naive individuals solve frequency as well as probability problems, when they reason extensionally, in particular when probabilities are represented by numbers of chances. Hoffrage, Gigerenzer, Krauss, and Martignon (Cognition 84 (2002) 343) argued that numbers of chances are natural frequencies disguised as probabilities, though lacking the properties of true probabilities. They concluded that we failed to demonstrate that naive individuals can deal with true probabilities as opposed to natural frequencies. In this paper, we demonstrate that numbers of chances do represent probabilities, and that naive individuals do not confuse numbers of chances with frequencies. We conclude that there is no evidence for the claim that natural frequencies have a special cognitive status, and the evolutionary argument that the human mind is unable to deal with probabilities.     

Is signal detection theory fundamentally flawed? A response to Balakrishnan (1998a, 1998b, 1999)

For nearly 50 years, signal detection theory (SDT; Green & Swets, 1966; Macmillan & Creelman, 1991) has been of central importance in the development of psychophysics and other areas of psychology. The theory has recently been challenged by Balakrishnan (1998b), who argues that, within SDT, an alternative index is “better justified” than d’ and who claims to show (1998a, 1999) that SDT is fundamentally flawed and should be rejected. His evidence is based on new nonparametric measures that he has introduced and applied to experimental data. He believes his results show that basic assumptions of SDT are not supported—in particular, that payoff and probability manipulations do not affect the position of the decision criterion. In view of the importance of SDT in psychology, these claims deserve careful examination. They are critically reviewed here. It appears that it is Balakrishnan’s arguments that fail, and not SDT.     

Stereotype Threat,Social Class,Gender, and Academic Under-Achievement: When Our Reputation Catches Up to Us and Takes Over

According to Steele (1997), negative stereotypes about intellectual abilities can act as a threat that disrupts the performance of students targeted by bad reputations. Previous research on stereotype threat has showed that on a stereotype-relevant test, stigmatized group members (e.g., African Americans) performed worse than others on an intellectual verbal task. However, when the instructions accompanying the test did not create stereotype threat, stigmatized group members' performance was equal to that of other participants. In this paper, we present studies documenting the effect of stereotype threat and discuss ways to counter it. Two strategies derived from Self-Categorization Theory (Turner & Oakes, 1989) and Self-Affirmation Theory (Steele, 1988) are presented, tested, and discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Developing ecological research in judo

Discussions and exchanges identify axes of research. From an example in physiology and perspectives in biomechanics, experimental judo situations nearer real ones may yield complementary data from applied and laboratory research.     

Psychic tonus, body schema and the parietal lobes: a multiple lesion case analysis

The psychic tonus model (Braun and colleagues, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2006) states that the left hemisphere is a "booster" of internal experience and behavior in general, and that the right hemisphere is a "dampener". Twenty-five patients with a "positive" extreme disturbance of body schema (somatoparaphrenia) and 37 patients with a "negative" disturbance of body schema (autotopagnosia or Gerstmann's syndrome), all following a unilateral parietal lesion, were found in the literature and were analyzed to test predictions from Braun's "psychic tonus" model. As expected, patients with a positive syndrome had a right hemisphere lesion significantly more frequently, and those with a negative syndrome had a left hemisphere lesion significantly more frequently. Thus the psychic tonus model of hemispheric specialization, previously supported with regard to psychomotor baseline, libido, talkativeness, memory, auditory and visual perceptual tonus, now incorporates the tonus of representation of the body (body schema) in the parietal lobes.