Transfer across unconditioned stimuli in serial feature discrimination training

The transfer of conditioned modulation across conditioned stimuli (CS) and unconditioned stimuli (US) was examined in 3 experiments that used Pavlovian appetitive training procedures with rats. In Experiment 1, after training in a positive patterning discrimination (X-->A+/X-/A-), X increased conditioned responding elicited by another trained-then-extinguished CS as long as that CS had been trained with the same US as was used in discrimination training. In Experiment 2, after training with a feature-negative discrimination (X-->A-/A+), X inhibited conditioned responding elicited by another trained-then-extinguished CS as long as that CS had been trained with the same US. Experiments 1 and 2 used a between-groups design, whereas Experiment 3 used a more powerful within-groups design. In Experiment 3, rats were trained in a feature-positive discrimination (X-->A+/A-). In transfer tests, X increased conditioned responding elicited by another CS trained then extinguished with the same US from training. This increase was greater than the X increased conditioned responding elicited by another CS trained then extinguished with a different US from training. The results supported the suggestion that features trained in serial discrimination tasks influence behavior indirectly by transiently raising or lowering the threshold for activation of the US representations by its target stimuli and by any other stimuli that may be associated with that US. Other interpretations of the findings were also considered.     

Source memory in older adults: an encoding or retrieval problem?

Source memory has been found to be more affected by aging than item memory, possibly because of declining frontal function among older adults. In 4 experiments, the authors explored the role of the frontal lobes (FLs) in source memory, the extent to which they may be involved in the encoding and/or retrieval of source or context, and the conditions under which the source memory deficit in older people may be reduced or eliminated. Results indicated that only a subset of older adults show deficits in source memory, namely those with below average frontal function, and these deficits can be eliminated by requiring people at study to consider the relation between an item and its context. These results provide convincing evidence of the importance of frontal function during the encoding of source and suggest that older adults with reduced FL function fail to initiate the processes required to integrate contextual information with focal content during study.     

Stress and Gender in Unemployed Female and Male Managers

The purpose of this pioneering study was to investigate the overall impact of unemployment on female managers compared to their male counterparts, an area which to date has received no specific attention. A questionnaire was designed based on a review of the relevant literature and content analysis of in‐depth interviews with 40 unemployed managers. This was distributed to the 80 government run Executive Job Clubs located throughout England, and was used to gain quantitative data exploring respondents' experiences of unemployment in terms of sources of stress, stress moderators, and stress outcomes. Completed questionnaires were received from 115 female and 169 male unemployed managers registered at 46 Executive Job Clubs (return rate 47%). Multiple regression techniques were used to develop individual and comparative models of unemployment for unemployed female and male managers. The findings indicated that unemployed female managers encountered substantially greater sources of stress than their male counterparts in all aspects of unemployment. Increased stressors and less effective stress moderators resulted in female managers experiencing significantly poorer mental well‐being and greater negative physical effects during unemployment than their male counterparts. Recommendations are made to key organisations.     

Beneficial academic orientations and self-actualization of college students

This study tested the prediction that individual differences in self-actualization would be associated with six academic orientations which influence college students' adjustment to their studies. Volunteer undergraduates, solicited from courses in the sciences and liberal arts and invited to complete internet measures of the academic orientations and self-actualization were 137 men and 311 women (M age=21.1, SD=4.8). Statistically significant bivariate correlations obtained between scores on self-actualization with all six orientations: creative expression, reading for pleasure, academic efficacy, and, inversely, structure dependence, academic apathy, and mistrust of instructors. Regression analysis showed that four orientations were independently related to self-actualization scores. The role of these four orientations in actualizing students' adjustment was discussed, and implications were drawn about the interpretation of scores on the four orientations.     

Parent–child talk and children's memory for stressful events

The relationship between parents' styles of talking about past events with their children and children's recall of stressful events was explored. In this investigation, 2‐ to 5‐year‐old children's recall of injuries requiring hospital emergency room treatment was assessed within a few days of the injury and again 2 years later, along with the way their parents reminisced with them about the event. Correlational analyses showed that age and parental reminiscing style were consistently related to child memory; regression analyses showed that although age was most important, parents who were more elaborative had children who recalled more during their initial interview about the harder‐to‐remember hospital event. Thus, an elaborative parental style may help children's recall of even highly salient and stressful events. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mid-life stress is associated with both up- and down-regulation of markers of humoral and cellular immunity

Perception of stress with consequent activation of a neuroendocrine cascade causes changes in immune function that may be bi-directional, with alterations in basal levels of biological parameters outside the optimal range. In this cross-sectional study of 302 healthy persons (males 56.3%, females 43.7%) aged 41-46 years, higher stress levels, as assessed by questionnaire measures of recurrent and recent perceived stress, were associated with a 4-fold greater risk of having a high compared to mid-range serum neopterin concentration, indicating activation of cellular immune mechanisms [adjusted odds ratio, OR; (95% confidence intervals, CI): Low stress=1.00 (reference group); Medium stress=4.13 (1.51, 11.29); High stress=4.63, (1.35, 15.83), p for trend=0.01]. Higher stress levels were associated with a 3-fold greater risk of having signs of humoral immune activation, as indicated by salivary IgA concentration [high compared to mid-range salivary IgA: Low stress=1.00 (reference group); Medium stress=1.06 (0.48, 2.34); High stress=3.62 (1.26, 10.39), p for trend=0.02], but also a 4-fold greater risk of humoral immune depression [low compared to mid-range IgA: Low stress=1.00 (reference group); Medium stress=1.72 (0.74, 3.99); High stress=4.38 (1.47, 13.00), p for trend=0.02]. In conclusion, in this cross-sectional study, higher stress levels were associated with higher serum neopterin and both elevated and depressed salivary IgA levels. These findings emphasise the importance of considering that stress may have bi-directional effects on immune mechanisms, and are consistent with an activational effect of chronic, perceived stress on cellular immunity, and a bi-directional effect on IgA levels, one aspect of humoral immunity.     

Dispositional and Situational Moderators of the Relationship Between Leader–Member Exchange and Work Tension

This paper examines the relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) and experienced work tension. The dispositional moderators of positive affectivity (PA) and negative affectivity (NA) and the situational moderator of frequency of interaction with the supervisor are included. We tested these relationships in a sample of 537 employees from various organizations. Specifically, we found that high NA coupled with high LMX produced the highest levels of work tension. Additionally, low frequency of interaction with the supervisor coupled with high LMX produced the highest levels of work tension. Finally, we found that the lowest levels of work tension were reported when individuals had high PA, high LMX, and high frequency of interaction with their supervisors.     

Simultaneous and independent acquisition of multisensory and unisensory associations

Although humans are almost constantly exposed to stimuli from multiple sensory modalities during daily life, the processes by which we learn to integrate information from multiple senses to acquire knowledge of multisensory objects are not well understood. Here, we present results of a novel audio-visual statistical learning procedure where participants are passively exposed to a rapid serial presentation of arbitrary audio-visual pairings (comprised of artificial/ synthetic audio and visual stimuli). Following this exposure, participants were tested with a two-interval forced-choice procedure in which their degree of familiarity with the experienced audio-visual pairings was evaluated against novel audio-visual combinations drawn from the same stimulus set. Our results show that subjects acquire knowledge of visual-visual, audio-audio, and audio-visual stimulus associations and that the learning of these types of associations occurs in an independent manner.