The hippocampus and memory of verbal and pictorial material

Recognition of words and kaleidoscope pictures showed a double dissociation of left and right hippocampal activity using magnetic source imaging (MSI). MSI has advantages over alternative imaging techniques that measure hemodynamic changes for identifying regional changes in brain activity in real time and on an individual subject basis without the need for image subtraction. In this study, lists of words or kaleidoscope pictures were presented for memorization followed by tests of list items and foils during which brain activity was recorded. There was greater activation in the left than the right hippocampus with abstract nouns (e.g., relief) and greater activation in the right than the left hippocampus with kaleidoscope pictures. This dissociation was evident on a case by case basis. This study demonstrates the specialization of the two medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions, including the hippocampi, for mnemonic processing of verbal and pictorial items that are difficult to encode verbally.     

Links between social and linguistic processing of speech in preschool children with autism: behavioral and electrophysiological measures

Data on typically developing children suggest a link between social interaction and language learning, a finding of interest both to theories of language and theories of autism. In this study, we examined social and linguistic processing of speech in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing chronologically matched (TDCA) and mental age matched (TDMA) children. The social measure was an auditory preference test that pitted 'motherese' speech samples against non-speech analogs of the same signals. The linguistic measure was phonetic discrimination assessed with mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential (ERP). As a group, children with ASD differed from controls by: (a) demonstrating a preference for the non-speech analog signals, and (b) failing to show a significant MMN in response to a syllable change. When ASD children were divided into subgroups based on auditory preference, and the ERP data reanalyzed, ASD children who preferred non-speech still failed to show an MMN, whereas ASD children who preferred motherese did not differ from the controls. The data support the hypothesis of an association between social and linguistic processing in children with ASD.     

Reducing the saliency of intentional stimuli results in greater contextual-dependent performance

Wright and Shea (1991) described intentional stimuli as explicitly identified information necessary to successfully perform a task, whereas incidental stimuli are not explicitly identified as crucial to task performance but have the potential to become associated with particular responses because of their selective presence in the training environment. Shea and Wright (1995), using a speeded-choice RT task, indicated that manipulating the strength of association between incidental information and the responses, by changing the discriminability of incidental stimuli while fixing the strength of the association between the intentional stimuli and each response, had a significant impact on task performance. The present experiment further examined the role played by incidental stimuli when the strength of association between the intentional stimuli and the associated responses was reduced, by minimising stimulus-response compatibility. It was assumed that this latter manipulation would have a similar impact as increasing the strength of incidental stimuli-response relationships. That is, the relative contribution of the incidental stimuli would increase, resulting in an increase in context-dependent behaviour during tests in which the intentional and incidental stimuli activated different responses. The results were in agreement with this prediction and consistent with a model for contextual-dependent performance proposed by Shea and Wright (1995) as well as with the outshining hypothesis forwarded by Smith (1988, 1994).     

Motor programming during practice conditions high and low in contextual interference

Random practice has been reported to demand greater time for movement preparation during acquisition than blocked practice. The present study revealed that this could be attributed to a more complete engagement of the motor programming process during random practice. This cost, however, was localized to the motor programming subprocess that S. T. Klapp (1995) associated with organizing the internal structure of a movement chunk rather than an alternative subprocess responsible for organizing movement chunks into the correct serial order. The more thorough employment of motor programming during acquisition by random practice participants resulted in a more efficient use of this planning operation during retention, as well as more accurate movement reproduction. These data support the claim that practice conditions high in contextual interference support improvements in both movement preparation and memory strength.     

Managing Uncertainty: Obesity Discourses and Physical Education in a Risk Society

This paper considers the role of physicaleducation researchers within current publicconcerns about body shape and weight. UsingUlrich Beck's notion of `risk' it examines howcertainty about children, obesity, exercise andhealth is produced in the contexts of `expert'knowledge and recontextualised in the academicand professional physical education literature.It is argued that the unquestioning acceptanceof the obesity discourses in physical educationhelps to construct anxieties about the body,which are detrimental to students and silencesalternative ways of thinking and doing physicaleducation.     

Mastery or mystery? Therapeutic writing: A review of the literature

Recent developments in online support and counselling suggest that the users of chat rooms, for example, or the Samaritans' e-mail 'listening' service, have already discovered the power of writing as a self-help vehicle. Developments in computer-mediated counselling and therapy are essentially text-based and client-driven. The therapeutic use of expressive and reflective writing is not widely recognised in British counselling and therapy circles. The empirical foundations for the therapeutic uses of the literary arts are, however, well established. This review aims to map the use of 'writing therapy' by drawing together cross-disciplinary research and practitioner reports which might support the place of writing as a creative therapy in its own right, whether as an adjunct to face-to-face counselling or as a self-help tool.     

Improving Attention in Old Age

The aim of this study was to examine whether a mindful intervention, based on noticing distinctions, could be used to improve the attention of older individuals. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four attention interventions. In the mindfulness groups, participants studying a set of pictures were told to notice either three or five distinctions. In the control groups, participants were either told to pay attention or were not given any directions related to attention before exposure to the set of pictures. The results indicated that those who viewed the stimuli in terms of distinctions were able to remember significantly more pictures than did those in the control groups. Distinction drawing also increased liking for the stimuli. The findings suggest that if older individuals want to increase attention and recall, rather than focus their attention, they may want to find ways to vary their attention.     

Coordinated interpersonal timing in the conversations of children who stutter and their mothers and fathers

Coordinated interpersonal timing (CIT) is a measure of "conversational congruence," or "attunement," and refers to the degree to which the temporal aspects of the vocal behaviors of co-conversationalists are correlated over the course of a conversation [Jasnow, M., & Feldstein, S. (1986). Adult-like temporal characteristics of mother-infant vocal interaction. Child Development, 57, 754-761]. In the present study, CIT was examined in a group of children who stutter (CWS), and a matched group of nonstuttering children (CWDNS; children who do not stutter), during conversations with either their mother or father recorded in two separate sessions (i.e., mother-child, father-child). Separate audio signals for both the child and parent (mother or father) were analyzed using AVTA software, which allowed for the quantification of sound and silence patterns in simultaneous speech. Squared cross-correlations (i.e., coefficients of CIT) for the durations of five vocal behavior states were obtained for each subject, through time series regression analysis using lag procedures. Vocal state behaviors within conversational turns included: vocalization, pauses, turn switching pauses, and interruptive and noninterruptive simultaneous speech. Results indicated that CWS and their parents showed mutual influence (i.e., CIT in both directions, child to parent and parent to child, or bi-directional influence) for more vocal state behaviors than did CWDNS and their parents. In addition, the CWS exhibited CIT with their parents for the durations of more vocal state behaviors than did the CWDNS (i.e., unidirectional influence). Findings suggest that children who stutter may be more easily influenced by the subtle timing aspects of conversation. Taken further, some of these children may perceive conversations with their parents as either challenging or difficult because of an element of unpredictability brought into conversations by the production of stuttering, the social skills of the child, and the nature of the parent-child relationship. Consequently, these children may be engaging in more pervasive coordination of the temporal characteristics of their speech to those of their conversational partner, as a mechanism by which to more effectively manage verbal interaction. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: After reading this paper, the learner will be able to: (1) describe the phenomenon of coordinated interpersonal timing (CIT); (2) summarize research findings in CIT as they apply to the verbal interactions of children and their parents; (3) summarize research findings in parent-stuttering child interaction, especially those related to the temporal aspects of both parent and child conversational speech, and (4) discuss the applicability of the findings from the present study to the treatment of childhood stuttering.     

The role of drug expectancy in the control of human drug seeking

Human drug seeking may be goal directed in the sense that it is mediated by a mental representation of the drug or habitual in the sense that it is elicited by drug-paired cues directly. To test these 2 accounts, the authors assessed whether a drug-paired stimulus (S+) would transfer control to an independently trained drug-seeking response. Smokers were trained on an instrumental discrimination that established a tobacco S+ in Experiment 1 and a tobacco and a money S+ in Experiment 2 that elicited an expectancy of their respective outcomes. Participants then learned 2 new instrumental responses, 1 for each outcome, in the absence of these stimuli. Finally, in the transfer test, each S+ was found to augment performance of the new instrumental response that was trained with the same outcome. This outcome-specific transfer effect indicates that drug-paired stimuli controlled human drug seeking via a representation or expectation of the drug rather than through a direct stimulus-response association.