One process is not enough! A speed-accuracy tradeoff study of recognition memory

Speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) methods have been used to contrast single- and dual-process accounts of recognition memory. In these procedures, subjects are presented with individual test items and are required to make recognition decisions under various time constraints. In this experiment, we presented word lists under incidental learning conditions, varying the modality of presentation and level of processing. At test, we manipulated the interval between each visually presented test item and a response signal, thus controlling the amount of time available to retrieve target information. Study— test modality match had a beneficial effect on recognition accuracy at short response-signal delays (≤300msec). Conversely, recognition accuracy benefited more from deep than from shallow processing at study only at relatively long response-signal delays (≥300 msec). The results are congruent with views suggesting that both fast familiarity and slower recollection processes contribute to recognition memory.     

Catalyzing the dialogue between the body and the mind in a psychotic analysand

The author presents the analysis of a 23-year-old, obese, psychotic man who was dominated by sensations and unable to work through the different levels of psychic elaboration. He could not discriminate between words and concrete objects or between the perceptual functions of sense organs and the oral-cannibalistic level of instinct. Following the working through of these inabilities, it became possible to understand the patient's use of sensation and to make him aware of his emotions and conflicts. The author's discussion of this material emphasizes the role of the body-mind conflict and how this can be confronted in the analytic relationship. Possible links with neuroscience are also indicated.     

Mood-congruent free recall bias in anxious individuals is not a consequence of response bias

The status of mood-congruent free recall bias in anxious individuals was evaluated following incidental encoding of target words. Individuals with high and low levels of trait anxiety completed a modified Stroop task, which revealed an attentional bias for threat-related stimuli in anxious individuals. This group was significantly slower in naming the colour in which threat-related words were displayed compared to neutral words. In a subsequent free recall test for the words used in the modified Stroop task, anxious individuals recalled more threat-related words compared to low-anxious people. This difference was significant even when controlling for the false recall of items that had not been presented during study. These results support the view put forward by Russo, Fox, Bellinger, and Nguyen-Van-Tam (2001) that mood-congruent free recall bias in anxious individuals can be observed if the target material is encoded at a relatively shallow level. Moreover, contrary to Dowens and Calvo (2003), the current results show that the memory advantage for threat-related information in anxious individuals is not a consequence of response bias.     

Toward a unified account of spacing effects in explicit cued-memory tasks

Memory for repeated items improves when presentations are spaced during study. This effect is found in memory tasks using different types of material, paradigms, and participant populations. Although several explanations have been proposed, none explains the presence of spacing effects in cued-memory tasks for unfamiliar stimuli. Two experiments assessed the spacing effect on a yes-no recognition-memory task using nonwords and words as targets. The main results showed that changing the font between repeated occurrences of targets at study removed the spacing effect for nonwords only. A 3rd experiment using lexical decision showed that the font manipulation reduced repetition priming of nonwords when items were repeated at Lag 0. These results suggest that short-term perceptual priming supports spacing effects in cued-memory tasks for unfamiliar stimuli.     

Age differences and the identity negative priming effect: an updated meta-analysis

A recent meta-analysis (P. Verhaeghen & L. De Meersman, 1998a) revealed that older adults show a reliable but significantly reduced negative priming effect compared with young adults. The present study provides an updated quantitative review on the effect of aging on the magnitude of the negative priming effect in identity tasks. This analysis demonstrated that the negative priming effect was not significantly different between young and old adults. This result differs from P. Verhaeghen and L. De Meersman's study. The implications of this finding for inhibitory-based theories of cognitive aging are discussed.     

Paradoxical decrease of imitation performance with age in children

Imitation development was studied in a cross-sectional design involving 174 primary-school children (aged 6–10), focusing on the effect of actions' complexity and error analysis to infer the underlying cognitive processes. Participants had to imitate the model's actions as if they were in front of a mirror (‘specularly’). Complexity varied across three levels: movements of a single limb; arm and leg of the same body side; or arm and leg of opposite body sides. While the overall error rate decreased with age, this was not true of all error categories. The rate of ‘side’ errors (using a limb of the wrong body side) paradoxically increased with age (from 9 years). However, with increasing age, the error rate also became less sensitive to the complexity of the action. This pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that older children have the working memory (WM) resources and the body knowledge necessary to imitate ‘anatomically’, which leads to additional side errors. Younger children might be paradoxically free from such interference because their WM and/or body knowledge are insufficient for anatomical imitation. Yet, their limited WM resources would prevent them from successfully managing the conflict between spatial codes involved in complex actions (e.g. moving the left arm and the right leg). We also found evidence that action side and content might be stored in separate short-term memory (STM) systems: increasing the number of sides to be encoded only affected side retrieval, but not content retrieval; symmetrically, increasing the content (number of movements) of the action only affected content retrieval, but not side retrieval. In conclusion, results suggest that anatomical imitation might interfere with specular imitation at age 9 and that STM storages for side and content of actions are separate.     

Stress-Induced Cardiomyopathy and Psychological Wellbeing 1 Year After an Acute Event

Stress cardiomyopathy (SCM) typically presents similar symptoms to acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, these symptoms differ when it comes to a transient and completely reversible myocardial dysfunction, which is frequently precipitated by acute stressful events, occurring in the absence of plaque rupture and coronary thrombosis. The purpose of this study was to investigate health-related quality of life (HRQL) and emotional burden subsequent to cardiac events in SCM patients. Thirty-seven SCM patients were compared with 37 matched AMI patients. All selected patients were assessed for HRQL and psychological distress at baseline and 1-year after the acute event. After controlling for covariates, scores on the Psychological General Well Being Index indicated that depressed mood had increased in both groups, but the increase for SCM patients was greater than for AMI patients. The AMI group displayed greater decreases than the SCM in physical quality of life and in total cardiac-related health quality of life. The percentage of patients with psychological distress increased significantly more in the SCM group than in the AMI group, and it made no difference whether the triggering event was emotional or physical. Our results suggest that, despite the more favorable medical prognosis of SCM patients, their cardiac condition being transient and resolving completely in few weeks, the psychological impact associated with their condition is more negative 1 year later than in the case of AMI patients whose medical prognosis is less favorable, and this difference is independent of type of trigger event.     

Effects of a REBT Based Training on Children and Teachers in Primary School

Rational Emotive Education (REE) is a psychological educational program offering a preventative psycho-educational curriculum to children in order to teach them emotional literacy skills. REE helps children by teaching them to challenge irrational thinking, to minimize their reactions to disappointment and frustrations, to cope more effectively with problems, and to more fully accept themselves. The efficacy of REE training for children and teachers was examined in a sample of 211 third grade students from nine different classes and 26 teachers. Each class was randomly assigned to one of three different groups, two experimental groups and a control group, each receiving different training. First objective of our study was to evaluate the efficacy of a REE training based on storytelling in changing children’s irrational beliefs. Second objective of our study was to observe the efficacy of a teachers’ training similar to that applied in REBT-focused school consultation groups in enhancing their self-efficacy. Results show an improved tendency in children to think rationally and an enhanced perception of self-efficacy in teachers for those groups that underwent the training compared to the control group. Our results suggest that REBT based trainings for children and teachers should be integrated into the classroom curriculum in order to prevent mental health problems and encourage positive social and emotional well-being.     

Exploring and integrating discrete and dimensional approaches while inducing negative emotional states

Selecting visual stimuli for inducing specific emotional states is very challenging, since the choice relies on specific conceptualization of emotions. In this work, we present a set of 55 stimuli, realized integrating discrete and dimensional theories of emotions, and specifically selected to investigate anger, fear, and disgust reactions in non-clinical and clinical contexts. Our set of stimuli presents several aspects of novelty since (1) a large and heterogeneous sample of subjects from the general population was involved in the labelling task, and (2) bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques were applied to integrate emotion models. The proposed set of stimuli could be useful for researchers and other professionals in the affective sciences to address negative emotion recognition issues within a broader perspective both in general population and in psychiatric samples. The obtained comprehensive characterization of the stimuli allowed us to confirm the sexual dimorphism in emotional processing.