L’imagerie bizarre et la mémoire

One experiment examined free recall memory performance for bizarre and common pictures. Bizarre pictures were designed either deleting some components (SB pictures) either adding some components (AB pictures). A classical bizarreness effect was only obtained for AB pictures. Indeed no facilitative effect of bizarreness was obtained when incomplete fragmented pictures were used. Results were discussed in light of theories interested by the explanation of the bizarreness effect in memory.     

The memory of two great mental calculators: Charcot and Binet's neglected 1893 experiments

French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893) and French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857-1911) are almost unknown as investigators who conducted original and fascinating studies in the area of memory. In a series of 1893 experiments, they compared the performance of two expert mental calculators, Jacques Inaudi and Périclès Diamandi, in tasks that consisted of recalling digits. Inspired by Ribot's psychological work (1881), they believed in the existence of not one type of memory but several partial, special, and local memories, each devoted to a particular domain. In all arithmetical prodigies, memory for digits is abnormally developed compared with other memories. Inaudi was considered to be an auditory memory-based mental calculator; when memorizing digits, he did not rely onthe appearance of the items or create visual imagery of any kind. Rather, he remembered digits principally by their sounds. Inaudi's methods of calculation and memorization were original and different from those used by Diamandi, who was a typical visual memory-based mental calculator. The experiments presented in the 1893 article were among the first scientific demonstrations of the importance to psychology of studying different types of memory. The present work gives a translation of this pioneering experimental article on expert calculators by Charcot and Binet, instructive for the comprehension of normal memory.     

Mimicry and propagation of prosocial behavior in a natural setting

This study tested, in a natural setting, the effect of mimicry on people's disposition toward helping others and the extent to which this helping behavior is extended to people not directly involved in the mimicry situation. In the main street of a busy town, men (n = 101) and women (n = 109) passersby were encountered and asked for directions. These passersby were subjected to mimicry by na?ve confederates who mimicked either verbal behavior alone or verbal and nonverbal behaviors together, including arm, hand, and head movements. In the control condition, passersby were not mimicked. Following this first encounter, each subject was then met further down the street by a second confederate who asked for money. The results show that people who had been mimicked complied more often with a request for money and gave significantly more, suggesting they were more helpful and more generous toward other people, even complete strangers.     

The role of goal representation in preschoolers' flexibility and inhibition

This study addressed the role of goal representation in preschoolers’ inhibition and flexibility performance. A total of 56 4- and 5-year-olds were tested in an adapted version of the Shape School task where the difficulty of goal representation was manipulated by varying the degree of transparency of task cues. The findings showed that both age groups’ performance in the flexibility phase was increased when demands on goal representation were alleviated by using transparent cues instead of arbitrary cues. Furthermore, 4-year-olds performed more accurately on go trials in the inhibition phase with transparent cues than with arbitrary cues. These results confirm the critical role of goal representation in flexibility and reveal its influence in inhibition contexts. Altogether, this study suggests that goal representation is a key element for efficient executive function across a variety of settings involving different executive functions.     

Preschoolers are able to take merit into account when distributing goods

Classic studies in developmental psychology demonstrate a relatively late development of equity, with children as old as 6 or even 8-10 years failing to follow the logic of merit--that is, giving more to those who contributed more. Following Piaget (1932), these studies have been taken to indicate that judgments of justice develop slowly and follow a stagelike progression, starting off with simple rules (e.g., equality: everyone receives the same) and only later on in development evolving into more complex ones (e.g., equity: distributions match contributions). Here, we report 2 experiments with 3- and 4-year-old children (N = 195) that contradict this constructivist account. Our results demonstrate that children as young as 3 years old are able to take merit into account by distributing tokens according to individual contributions but that this ability may be hidden by a preference for equality.     

Zuckerman's revised alternative five-factor model: validation of the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire in four French-speaking countries

The aim of this study was to analyze the replicability of Zuckerman's revised Alternative Five-factor model in a French-speaking context by validating the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire (ZKA-PQ) simultaneously in 4 French-speaking countries. The total sample was made up of 1,497 subjects from Belgium, Canada, France, and Switzerland. The internal consistencies for all countries were generally similar to those found for the normative U.S. and Spanish samples. A factor analysis confirmed that the normative structure replicated well and was stable within this French-speaking context. Moreover, multigroup confirmatory factor analyses have shown that the ZKA-PQ reaches scalar invariance across these 4 countries. Mean scores were slightly different for women and men, with women scoring higher on Neuroticism but lower on Sensation Seeking. Globally, mean score differences across countries were small. Overall, the ZKA-PQ seems an interesting alternative to assess both lower and higher order personality traits for applied or research purposes.     

The impact of processing time on the bizarreness and orthographic distinctiveness effects

The bizarreness effect and the orthographic distinctiveness effect (OD effect) are typical cases of secondary-distinctiveness-based effects. This study tested the simple attentional account or processing time hypothesis as a possible explanation of the bizarreness effect and the OD effect. In the bizarreness effect literature, this hypothesis gained support by some studies but was also discredited by other research. In light of these conflicting results, Experiment 1 was devised to test the processing time hypothesis in the bizarreness effect by using black-and-white concrete images and manipulating the time allotted for processing the stimuli (500 ms, 1000 ms, 3000 ms). Concerning the OD effect, no research has directly investigated the impact of processing time by examining the effect under varying amounts of study time. Experiment 2 was thus devised to investigate this same hypothesis in the OD effect and time allotted for processing the stimuli was manipulated (250 ms, 500 ms, 1000 ms, 3000 ms). Results did not support the processing time hypothesis since the magnitude of the bizarreness effect and of the OD effect was not modulated by the amount of time allotted for processing the stimuli. We refer to alternative explanations to account for these two secondary-distinctiveness-based effects.     

The restorative logic of punishment: another argument in favor of weak selection

Strong reciprocity theorists claim that punishment has evolved to promote the good of the group and to deter cheating. By contrast, weak reciprocity suggests that punishment aims to restore justice (i.e., reciprocity) between the criminal and his victim. Experimental evidences as well as field observations suggest that humans punish criminals to restore fairness rather than to support group cooperation.     

Influences on Sexual Partnering Among African American Adolescents With Concurrent Sexual Relationships

Adolescents often engage in concurrent sexual partnerships as part of a developmental process of gaining experience with sexuality. The authors qualitatively examined patterns of concurrency and variation in normative and motivational influences on this pattern of sexual partnering among African American adolescents (31 males; 20 females), ages 15 to 17 years. Using content analysis, gender and contextual differences in social norms and motivations for concurrency were explored. Findings describe the normative influences on adolescent males and females with regard to sexual concurrency and the transfer of these norms from one generation to the next.