Sexual orientation and spatial memory

The present study aimed at determining the influence of sexual orientation in human spatial learning and memory. Participants performed the Boxes Room, a virtual reality version of the Holeboard. In Experiment I, a reference memory task, the position of the hidden rewards remained constant during the whole experiment. In Experiment II, a working memory task, the position of rewards changed between blocks. Each block consisted of two trials: One trial for acquisition and another for retrieval. The results of Experiment I showed that heterosexual men performed better than homosexual men and heterosexual women. They found the rewarded boxes faster. Moreover, homosexual participants committed more errors than heterosexuals. Experiment II showed that working memory abilities are the same in groups of different sexual orientation. These results suggest that sexual orientation is related to spatial navigation abilities, but mostly in men, and limited to reference memory, which depends more on the function of the hippocampal system.     

Primacy of emotional vs. semantic scene recognition in peripheral vision

Emotional scenes were presented peripherally (5.2° away from fixation) or foveally (at fixation) for 150 ms. In affective evaluation tasks viewers judged whether a scene was unpleasant or not, or whether it was pleasant or not. In semantic categorisation tasks viewers judged whether a scene involved animals or humans (superordinate-level task), or whether it portrayed females or males (subordinate-level task). The same stimuli were used for the affective and the semantic task. Results indicated that in peripheral vision affective evaluation was less accurate and slower than animal/human discrimination, and did not show any advantage over gender discrimination. In addition, performance impairment in the peripheral relative to the foveal condition was greater or equivalent for affective than for semantic categorisation. These findings cast doubts on the specialness and the primacy of affective over semantic recognition. The findings are also relevant when considering the role of the subcortical "low route" in emotional processing.     

Economic inequality enhances inferences that the normative climate is individualistic and competitive

In addition to the negative effects of economic inequality on a range of health and social outcomes, we propose that inequality should also affect how people perceive the broader normative climate in society. We predicted that people living in a more unequal (vs. equal) society are more likely to appraise the social context as one where individualism determines people's behavior. We tested this idea in three experiments by manipulating the degree of economic inequality in a fictional society. We showed that, compared to the low-inequality condition, participants in the high-inequality condition were more likely to project individualistic norms onto society. Furthermore, Experiments 2 and 3 showed that in the high- (vs. low-) economic-inequality condition, participants inferred more competition and less cooperation between people. Our results are discussed in light of the importance of the perception of a broader normative climate to explain the consequences of economic inequality.     

A comparison of different investigative interviewing techniques in generating differential recall enhancement and detecting deception

This study compared the Stepwise Interview, Cognitive Interview, and Reality Interview in detecting deception with inmates. The dependent measures were the amount of unique details provided during the free narrative and mnemonics and the number of words provided during the free narrative and mnemonics of each interview. The Stepwise Interview generated 58.3% accuracy, the Cognitive Interview generated 70.0% accuracy, and the Reality Interview generated 93.3% accuracy. The different tasks of these interviews increased the differences between honest and deceptive statements and therefore, increased the accuracy in detection of deception. Differential recall enhancement is used to explain the findings.     

From Lydia Pinkham to Bob Dole: what the changing face of direct-to-consumer drug advertising reveals about the professionalism of medicine

From its founding in 1847, the AMA divided drugs into "ethical" and "unethical" preparations. Those that were ethical had a known composition and were advertised only to the profession. Other, patent medicines (technically proprietary drugs, whose trademarks were protected by copyright), were sold directly to the public. In spite of the AMA's efforts to ban the advertising and sale of those nostrums, proprietary drugs flourished during the nineteenth century. Starting in 1900, however, three major societal trends combined to bolster the AMA's campaign, and by 1920 almost all advertising was directed to physicians, who would then prescribe medications to their patients. This ban on advertising pharmaceuticals directly to the public remained virtually unchanged until approximately 1980. Since then, it has slowly eroded and, as recently as 1997, the FDA created guidelines for pharmaceutical companies to advertise on television. What does this change say about the profession of medicine, the role of the physician in society, and the doctor-patient relationship? Using a comparative historical approach, this paper examines these issues.     

The role of task difficulty in the control of dynamic balance in children and adults

Although several studies have explored the development of balance control in children, few have addressed the influence of task difficulty on balance control under dynamic and ecologically valid conditions. In this study, reaching tasks in three directions to two distances enabled the examination of balance control in the context of graded task difficulty. Balance control was measured in younger (6 years) and older (10-11 years) children and adults using center of pressure (COP) measures (initial position, excursion, and amplitude) and reach distance. Measures of the initial position of the COP and the excursion of the COP revealed no age-related differences in balance control. Furthermore, balance control, measured by the amplitude of COP movement over the course of the reaching tasks, indicated no differences between the age groups for the least difficult and most difficult tasks. For tasks of moderate difficulty, however, older children displayed levels of balance control similar to younger children for some tasks and higher levels of balance control, similar to adults, for others. This study suggests that (1) process-based measures of balance control are more sensitive in detecting age-related differences, and (2) balance control depends upon both age and the difficulty of the task being performed.     

Does the proportion of associatively related pairs modulate the associative priming effect at very brief stimulus-onset asynchronies?

A number of experiments have shown that the magnitude of the associative priming effect increases substantially when there is a high proportion of associatively related pairs in the list when the stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) between prime and target is long (more than 400 ms). In the present series of experiments we manipulated the proportion of associatively related pairs when the SOA was very brief (less than 200 ms). If processing of a target word is facilitated automatically by the prior presentation of a related prime, the occurrence of priming should be unaffected by the proportion of related pairs in the list. Experiment 1 showed a robust relatedness proportion effect obtained in a double lexical decision task. Experiments 2-4 used the masked priming technique at several very short SOAs (66, 116, and 166 ms) in lexical decision and naming. The results showed a reliable associative priming effect in the two tasks, which did not differ as a function of the proportion of related pairs. Finally, Experiment 5 used unmasked primes at an 83-ms SOA in which the primes remained in view after the target presentation. As in Experiments 2-4, the associative effect was not modulated by the proportion of associatively related pairs. The implications of these results are discussed.     

Self-defeating personality and memories of parents' child-rearing behaviour

A group of 132 nonclinical volunteers was given the Self-defeating Personality Scale and a short version of the Egna Minnen Betr?ffande Uppfostran (EMBU) scale to explore correlations of scores for adults' self-defeating traits with memories of parents' child-rearing behaviours. For men, the recall of two rejecting parents and, for women, the memory of a nonsupportive father were significantly correlated with scores of self-defeating traits. The latter scores correlated positively with memories of both overinvolved mother and father for men, while no significant correlation was found among women.     

The effects of associative and semantic priming in the lexical decision task

Four lexical decision experiments were conducted to examine under which conditions automatic semantic priming effects can be obtained. Experiments 1 and 2 analyzed associative/semantic effects at several very short stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs), whereas Experiments 3 and 4 used a single-presentation paradigm at two response-stimulus intervals (RSIs). Experiment 1 tested associatively related pairs from three semantic categories (synonyms, antonyms, and category coordinates). The results showed reliable associative priming effects at all SOAs. In addition, the correlation between associative strength and magnitude of priming was significant only at the shortest SOA (66 ms). When prime-target pairs were semantically but not associatively related (Experiment 2), reliable priming effects were obtained at SOAs of 83 ms and longer. Using the single-presentation paradigm with a short RSI (200 ms, Experiment 3), the priming effect was equal in size for associative + semantic and for semantic-only pairs (a 21-ms effect). When the RSI was set much longer (1,750 ms, Experiment 4), only the associative + semantic pairs showed a reliable priming effect (23 ms). The results are interpreted in the context of models of semantic memory.