The neural bases of the constructive nature of autobiographical memories studied with a self-paced fMRI design

In Conway and Pleydell-Pearce's model (2000), autobiographical memories are viewed as transitory mental representations, more often generated in an effortful way. An important claim of the model concerns the dynamic process that evolves over time, from the left prefrontal areas to posterior regions, to retrieve specific memories. The present work aims at investigating, using fMRI, the temporal distribution of effortful autobiographical memory construction. In addition, a self-paced design was implemented to elucidate the question of the timing window required to evoke recollections. The results showed a large pattern of brain regions, which included the two major poles of activation predicted by Conway and Pleydell-Pearce's model. Likewise, we were able to detect the earlier implication of the left dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex, by comparison with posterior structures, which seemed to confirm its involvement in the effortful retrieval process. Finally, the self-paced procedure allowed us to refine the timing window necessary to construct past events.     

Understanding of the current police caution (England and Wales)

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (England and Wales) modified suspects' right to silence during police questioning and required a new police caution. The current 37-word caution was introduced after it was found that a proposed 60-word draft version was too complex. The results of the present study show that, although more succinct, the current caution is no easier to explain. Even under optimal conditions, when the participants could focus on each sentence in turn, only 1 in 10 of the general population (n=15), 6 in 10 of A-level students preparing for university (n=72) and 9 in 10 police officers (n=21) demonstrated their understanding by explaining all three sentences correctly. For all groups, the difficulties were more marked when the caution was presented in its entirety, as would happen in real life. The complexity of the caution has serious implications for suspects in police detention. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Relationships of Perceived Motivational Climate to Cohesion and Collective Efficacy in Elite Female Teams

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of perceived motivational climate to cohesion and collective efficacy in elite female teams. A total of 124 basketball and handball athletes completed two season measures (T1, T2). Relationships were examined at an individual level both statically and across time. Canonical correlations revealed that a combination of high perceptions of an ego-involving but low perceptions of a task-involving climate were associated with low perceptions of task cohesion at Time 1. High perceptions of a task-involving but low perceptions of an ego-involving climate were associated with higher perceptions of task cohesion and collective efficacy at Time 2. Moreover, low perceptions of an ego-involving and moderately low perceptions of a task-involving climate were associated with high perceptions of social cohesion at Time 2. Regression analyses including autoregressive influence indicated that a task-involving climate positively predicted variance in T2 group integration-task and collective efficacy after controlling for T1 scores. In contrast, an ego-involving climate negatively predicted changes in T2 athletes’ perceptions of social cohesion (individual attractions to the group-social [ATG-S], group integration-social [GI-S]) and group integration-task [GI-T] after controlling for T1 scores. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Top-down attentional modulation of spatial frequency processing in scene perception

Recent evidence suggests that spatial frequency (SF) processing of simple and complex visual patterns is flexible. The use of spatial scale in scene perception seems to be influenced by people's expectations. However as yet there is no direct evidence for top-down attentional effects on flexible scale use in scene perception. In two experiments we provide such evidence. We presented participants with low- and high-pass SF filtered scenes and cued their attention to the relevant scale. In Experiment 1 we subsequently presented them with hybrid scenes (both low- and high-pass scenes present). We observed that participants reported detecting the cued component of hybrids. To explore if this might be due to decision biases, in Experiment 2, we replaced hybrids with images containing meaningful scenes at uncued SFs and noise at the cued SFs (invalid cueing). We found that participants performed poorly on invalid cueing trials. These findings are consistent with top-down attentional modulation of early spatial frequency processing in scene perception.     

A randomized controlled trial of compassion cultivation training: Effects on mindfulness,affect, and emotion regulation

Compassion is a positive orientation towards suffering that may be enhanced through compassion training and is thought to influence psychological functioning. However, the effects of compassion training on mindfulness, affect, and emotion regulation are not known. We conducted a randomized controlled trial in which 100 adults from the community were randomly assigned to either a 9-week compassion cultivation training (CCT) or a waitlist (WL) control condition. Participants completed self-report inventories that measured mindfulness, positive and negative affect, and emotion regulation. Compared to WL, CCT resulted in increased mindfulness and happiness, as well as decreased worry and emotional suppression. Within CCT, the amount of formal meditation practiced was related to reductions in worry and emotional suppression. These findings suggest that compassion cultivation training effects cognitive and emotion factors that support psychological flexible and adaptive functioning.     

Directed forgetting of autobiographical memory in mild Alzheimer's disease

Using the autobiographical directed forgetting method (Barnier et al., 2007), the present paper addressed the intentional inhibitory processes of episodic and semantic autobiographical memory in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Mild AD patients and healthy elderly people were instructed to either forget or to continue remembering previously generated autobiographical events. In a later recall test they were asked to reconstruct the early-generated memories regardless of the forget/remember instruction. Autobiographical reconstruction was further distributed into episodic and semantic memories. Results showed no forget instruction effect on episodic or semantic autobiographical recall with AD patients, whereas healthy elderly people were able to inhibit only episodic autobiographical memories. The findings suggest an impairment of the intentional inhibitory processes in autobiographical memory with AD and a relative preservation of these mechanisms with normal ageing. They also demonstrate an earlier decline in the intentional inhibitory processes compared to the autobiographical deterioration in AD.     

Economic inequality is linked to biased self-perception

People's self-perception biases often lead them to see themselves as better than the average person (a phenomenon known as self-enhancement). This bias varies across cultures, and variations are typically explained using cultural variables, such as individualism versus collectivism. We propose that socioeconomic differences among societies--specifically, relative levels of economic inequality--play an important but unrecognized role in how people evaluate themselves. Evidence for self-enhancement was found in 15 diverse nations, but the magnitude of the bias varied. Greater self-enhancement was found in societies with more income inequality, and income inequality predicted cross-cultural differences in self-enhancement better than did individualism/collectivism. These results indicate that macrosocial differences in the distribution of economic goods are linked to microsocial processes of perceiving the self.     

Salivary testosterone and self-report aggressive and pro-social personality characteristics in men and women

Measures of salivary testosterone and the personality dimensions of aggression and pro-social behavior were obtained in 306 (155 male and 151 female) university students. Each participant provided two samples of saliva and completed ten self-report personality scales from multiple inventories. A factor analysis of the personality scales produced two factors, an aggression factor and a pro-social behavior factor. Men averaged five times the amount of salivary testosterone as women (99 pg/ml vs. 18.5 pg/ml) and rated themselves as more aggressive and less nurturant. Within each sex, testosterone was positively correlated with aggression and negatively correlated with pro-social personality. Structural equation modelling analyses suggested that a direct effect model best described the relationship between salivary testosterone and the latent personality dimensions of aggression and pro-social behavior. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.