Mental time travel for self and other in three- and four-year-old children

Humans possess the unique ability to mentally travel backward in time to re-experience past events (i.e., episodic memory) and forward in time to pre-experience future events (i.e., episodic foresight). Although originally viewed as different cognitive skills, they are now both viewed as components of the episodic memory system. Recently, it has been suggested that the episodic system may allow us to not only pre-experience and predict our own future but also that of another person. In the current study, we investigate this possibility by examining the ability of three- and four-year-old children to plan for their own future and for that of another person. We found that both three- and four-year-old children performed equally, when planning for their own future or when planning for the experimenter's future. These data are consistent with the finding that planning for someone else's future recruits the same neural structures that are used when planning for one's own future.     

Reactions to Appraisal Discrepancies: Performance Ratings and Attributions

The traditional top-down approach to performance appraisal has been criticized as not keeping pace with the move toward more participative organizations of the last decade. This has led many organizations to adopt newer performance appraisal systems that use multiple feedback sources (e.g., 360-degree feedback systems). However, research indicates that multiple feedback sources often disagree on performance ratings and attributions. The current paper reports the results of one laboratory and one field study that show the importance of performance and attributional rating discrepancies on the appraisal process.     

Effects of Alprazolam on Complex Human Functioning1

Benzodiazepines can reduce anxiety, can have favorable effects upon sleep, and may diminish problems that interfere with patients' quality of life. On the other hand, these drugs can generate transient anterograde amnesia and may diminish aspects of task performance. Research on the impact of alprazolam and other “tranquilizing” drugs has generally focused on tasks that remain below the complex efforts of managerial or professional personnel. Alprazolam-induced reduction of anxiety under challenging conditions might aid complex task performance, yet anterograde amnesia might interfere. In the present research, managers participated in validated complex simulation tasks. In a double-blind, dual crossover design, placebo, 0.5 mg, or 1.0 mg alprazolam was administered on 2 occasions during the task day. Drug treatment diminished performance on measures that require sequential actions but improved performance on measures less subject to short term memory but more determined by long-term style of functioning. Thus, depending on task requirements, positive or negative alteration of performance might occur.     

Book reviews

Gleitman, H. Psychology. New York: Norton, 1981. Pp. xxii + 840. £11.50. ISBN 0 393 95102 2.

Darley, J., Glucksberg, D., Kamin, L. And Kinchla, R., Psychology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1981. Pp. xvi+65z. £ 413.95. ISBN o 13 733154 I.

Valenstein, E. S. (Ed.).The Psychosurgery Debate : Scientific, Legal, and Ethical Perspectives. Freeman: San Francisco. 1980. Pp. 594. £14.80 (hbk); £7.60 (pbk). ISBN 0 7167 1156 7.

Gregory, R. L. Mind in Science. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1981. £18.50. Pp. XIV+641. ISBN o 297 77825 0.

Oborne, D. J., Gruneberg, M. M. And Eiser, J. R. Research in Psychology and Medicine. Volume I Physical Aspects-Pain, Stress, Diagnosis and Organic Damage; Volume II Social Aspects-Attitudes, Communication, Care and Training. London : Academic Press. I979. Pp. 486 and 488. ISBN 0 12 523701 4 and ISBN 0 12 523702 02. £10.80 each.

Sarason, I. G. and Spielberger, C. D. Stress and Anxiety. Volume 7. Washington: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation. 1980. Pp. 308. $25.50. ISBN 0 89116 183 X.

Levitt, E. E.The Psychology of Anxiety, Second Edition. Hillsdale, New Jersey, Erlbaum Associates. 1980. Pp. 188. ISBN 0 89859 040 X.

McGuigan, F. J., Sime, W. E. and Wallace, J. M. (Eds). Stress and Tension Control. New York: Plenum. 1980. Pp. 320. $29.50. ISBN 0 306 40450 8.     

The Effects of Hippocampal and Area Parahippocampalis Lesions in Pigeons: II. Concurrent Discrimination and Spatial Memory

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of bilateral hippocampus (Hp) and area parahippocampalis (APH) lesions in pigeons on the acquisition of a visual and spatial task. In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained on three successive six-pair concurrent discrimination tasks, each using a novel set of stimuli. There was no difference between control unoperated pigeons and Hp-APH pigeons in terms of the number of sessions required to learn either the first, second, or third concurrent discrimination task. In Experiment 2, the same pigeons were trained on an open-field spatial task similar in many ways to the radial-arm maze task used with rats. In contrast to the absence of impairments on the visual concurrent discrimination task, pigeons with Hp-APH lesions were severely impaired on the acquisition of the spatial task. These findings support the view that the Hp-APH in pigeons is important for the processing of spatial, rather than visual information.     

Teachability of Reflective Processes in Written Composition

Reflective thought, as sustained in writing, is attributed to two-way communication between a content problem space and a rhetorical problem space. An instructional experiment involving sixth-graders aimed at helping them sustain such a two-way process independently, in place of the more typical one-way process of generating content and writing it out. Instruction included modeling of thinking aloud, both by instructors and students, use of cues to stimulate self-questioning during planning monologues, and direct strategy instruction emphasizing dialectical synthesis of conflicting ideas. Increased numbers of reflective statements in thinking-aloud protocols and rated reflectiveness of compositions indicate gains were made at the level of reflection on individual ideas.