The effects of revisionism on remembered emotion: the valence of older,voluntary immigrants' pre‐migration autobiographical memories

Prior research on remembered emotion demonstrates effects of revisionism in memory. The positivity bias describes preferential recall for positive emotions and the fading affect bias describes greater fading of negative versus positive emotion over time. Such effects predict that older adults would remember childhood and youth more positively than later adulthood. However, economic immigrants, whose childhood and youth reflect experiences of poverty and unemployment, may not show the effects of such revisionism. This study examined the remembered emotion of immigrant and non‐immigrant older Puerto Ricans whose early years corresponded to hard times on the island. Multilevel modelling showed that both groups exhibited the effects of the positivity and fading affect biases, but immigrants remembered childhood and youth more negatively than non‐immigrants. This suggests both accurate memory for a more negative past as well the effects of additional revisionism whereby a valued and chosen present is preferentially compared to the past. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Test anxiety and intelligence testing: a closer examination of the stage-fright hypothesis and the influence of stressful instruction

The influence of test anxiety and the content of instruction (stressful versus reassuring) on measurements of intelligence were investigated. It was expected that components of test anxiety would show differential effects on test performance. A Latin Square design was used to unravel the effects of test type and test order. Furthermore, effects of type of instruction, stressful versus reassuring, were studied by means of a within-subjects design. Test anxiety was measured with the Revised Worry-Emotionality Questionnaire. Measurements for verbal ability, reasoning, and memory were administered. Performance on memory tests showed less vulnerability to test anxiety compared with the other tests, with a picture recall test being insensitive. The negative effect of test anxiety was mostly confined to the beginning of a test session, independent of the type of test. Partial support for the so-called stage-fright hypothesis was found. The effect of instructional content was equivocal.     

THE EFFECT OF FEEDBACK ON THE ACCURACY OF CHECKLIST COMPLETION DURING INSTRUMENT FLIGHT TRAINING

This study examined whether pilots completed airplane checklists more accurately when they receive postflight graphic and verbal feedback. Participants were 8 college students who are pilots with an instrument rating. The task consisted of flying a designated flight pattern using a personal computer aviation training device (PCATD). The dependent variables were the number of checklist items completed correctly. A multiple baseline design across pairs of participants with withdrawal of treatment was employed in this study. During baseline, participants were given postflight technical feedback. During intervention, participants were given postflight graphic feedback on checklist use and praise for improvements along with technical feedback. The intervention produced near perfect checklist performance, which was maintained following a return to the baseline conditions.     

Theoretical status of computational cognitive modeling

This article explores the view that computational models of cognition may constitute valid theories of cognition, often in the full sense of the term “theory”. In this discussion, this article examines various (existent or possible) positions on this issue and argues in favor of the view above. It also connects this issue with a number of other relevant issues, such as the general relationship between theory and data, the validation of models, and the practical benefits of computational modeling. All the discussions point to the position that computational cognitive models can be true theories of cognition.     

ELOPTA: A novel microcontroller-based operant device

Operant devices have been used for many years in animal behavior research, yet such devices a regenerally highly specialized and quite expensive. Although commercial models are somewhat adaptable and resilient, they are also extremely expensive and are controlled by difficult to learn proprietary software. As an alternative to commercial devices, we have designed and produced a fully functional, programmable operant device, using a PICmicro microcontroller (Microchip Technology, Inc.). The electronic operant testing apparatus (ELOPTA) is designed to deliver food when a study animal, in this case a bird, successfully depresses the correct sequence of illuminated keys. The device logs each keypress and can detect and log whenever a test animal i spositioned at the device. Data can be easily transferred to a computer and imported into any statistical analysis software. At about 3% the cost of a commercial device, ELOPTA will advance behavioral sciences, including behavioral ecology, animal learning and cognition, and ethology.     

Generating variables with arbitrary properties

There are occasions in psychological research where it is desirable to have available sets of variables with arbitrary intercorrelations. A quite simple procedure is described for generating pairs of such variables.     

HEBREW WISDOM AND PSYCHOTHEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE

Abstract. When understood as a potential resolution for the epistemological impasse between psychology and religion, Hebrew wisdom presents a model for dialogue. Noting that wisdom exhibits a special interest in human dispositions and behavior, the authors compare Viktor Frankl's logotherapy and Adlerian psychology with Proverbs and uncover a biblical, empirical approach to psychology which indirectly incorporates the religious dimension.     

Interpolation in structure from motion.

We investigated surface interpolation in displays of structure from motion (SFM). To do so, we introduced a new method for measuring surface perception in dynamic displays--the SFM probe. An SFM probe is a dot that moves rigidly with the dots on a simulated surface, and whose distance from that surface can be adjusted with a joystick or similar control. The displays we studied were random-dot cylinders containing a vertical strip devoid of feature points (the gap). Subjects adjusted an SFM probe, presented in the gap, until the probe dot appeared to be on the surface. Variability in probe-dot placement decreased with increasing texture density on the cylinder and increased with increasing gap width. Subjects showed a consistent bias to place the probe dot outside the cylinder. This bias increased with increasing texture density for the SFM displays. (The opposite bias was found in a static two-dimensional interpolation task with an arc whose curvature matched that of the cylinder: Subjects placed the probe dot inside the arc.) This outside bias is inconsistent with several theoretical approaches to surface interpolation.     

Reading and visual memory: remembering scenes that were never seen.

In Experiment 1 (N = 16), under conditions of high memory load (60 pictures and 50 paragraphs) and a 1-week retention interval, undergraduate subjects reported their memory for photographs of scenes (cued recall and free-recall tasks). Subjects frequently reported memory for photographs that they had actually never seen, but had read about in a brief paragraph. In Experiment 2 (N = 40), the same pattern of results was obtained with immediate testing. Experiment 2 also demonstrated that the likelihood of subjects falsely attributing scene memory (based on reading) to actually having viewed a photograph was reduced when metacognitive awareness of imaging during reading was made salient. Awareness of image creation was induced by requiring subjects to rate the paragraphs with respect to imagery vividness. Although other measures of memory remained the same, subjects in the induced-imagery condition made 50% fewer confusion errors than subjects who read the paragraphs without imagery instructions. The results are discussed in the context of Johnson and Raye's (1981) reality monitoring model.