Acute predator stress impairs the consolidation and retrieval of hippocampus-dependent memory in male and female rats

We have studied the effects of an acute predator stress experience on spatial learning and memory in adult male and female Sprague-Dawley rats. All rats were trained to learn the location of a hidden escape platform in the radial-arm water maze (RAWM), a hippocampus-dependent spatial memory task. In the control (non-stress) condition, female rats were superior to the males in the accuracy and consistency of their spatial memory performance tested over multiple days of training. In the stress condition, rats were exposed to the cat for 30 min immediately before or after learning, or before the 24-h memory test. Predator stress dramatically increased corticosterone levels in males and females, with females exhibiting greater baseline and stress-evoked responses than males. Despite these sex differences in the overall magnitudes of corticosterone levels, there were significant sex-independent correlations involving basal and stress-evoked corticosterone levels, and memory performance. Most importantly, predator stress impaired short-term memory, as well as processes involved in memory consolidation and retrieval, in male and female rats. Overall, we have found that an intense, ethologically relevant stressor produced a largely equivalent impairment of memory in male and female rats, and sex-independent corticosterone-memory correlations. These findings may provide insight into commonalities in how traumatic stress affects the brain and memory in men and women.     

Effects of study task on the neural correlates of source encoding

The present study investigated whether the neural correlates of source memory vary according to study task. Subjects studied visually presented words in one of two background contexts. In each test, subjects made old/new recognition and source memory judgments. In one study test cycle, study words were subjected to animacy judgments, whereas in another cycle the study task required syllable judgments. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed to contrast the neural activity elicited by study words that attracted accurate source judgments on the later memory test, as opposed to words for which source judgments were incorrect or for which source information was unavailable. In both tasks, relative to words for which source memory failed, study words that were later assigned to the correct source elicited enhanced activity in ventral extrastriate cortex. In addition to these common effects of subsequent source memory, additional effects were observed that were selective for each study task. The present findings add weight to the proposal that neural activity supporting successful episodic memory encoding is a reflection of both the online processing engaged by an episode as it is experienced, and the demands imposed by the later retrieval task.     

Asian cultural values gap, cognitive flexibility, coping strategies, and parent-child conflicts among Korean Americans

The study examined Korean American college students' perceived Asian cultural values gap between themselves and their parents, cognitive flexibility, and coping strategies. The relationships between these factors were studied with the intensities and types of parent-child conflicts. The results indicated that the participants adhered less strongly to Asian values than their parents. When faced with conflicts, the participants reported using problem solving coping strategy to the greatest extent, followed by social support coping strategy, and then avoidance coping strategy. Simultaneous regression analyses revealed a positive relationship between the participant-perceived parent-child values gap and the intensity of conflicts, particularly in the area of dating and marriage. There were inverse relationships between cognitive flexibility and the intensity of conflicts, specifically in the area of dating and marriage. A positive relationship was observed between the use of social support coping strategy and intensity of conflicts. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed a significant interaction effect in which participant-perceived parent-child values gap and cognitive flexibility were related to increased frequency of dating and marriage conflicts.     

Cultural differences in estimation of other people's self-construals: Comparison of Korea and USA

The current study examined cultural differences in the relationship between individuals' self-ratings and their estimation of others on independent and interdependent self-construals. With data from undergraduates in the USA and Korea, findings showed that, in both USA and Korea, participants rated themselves higher than others on independent self-construal. For interdependent self-construal, however, Korean participants rated themselves higher than others, whereas American participants rated themselves lower than others. The positive relationship between self-esteem and the extent to which self-ratings exceeded ratings of others on independent self-construal was stronger for Korean than for American participants.     

Intransigent vowel-consonant position in Korean dysgraphia: evidence of spatial-constructive representation

Dysgraphia due to a focal brain lesion can be characterized by substitution, transposition, deletion and/or addition errors of graphemes or strokes. However, those linguistic errors can be language-specific because the writing system of a given language may influence error patterns. We investigated a Korean stroke patient, a 57-year-old English teacher with dysgraphia both in Korean Han-geul [see text] and in English alphabet writings. The results of an experimental testing revealed transposition errors between a consonant and a vowel only in English but not in Korean writings. This austerity of vowel-consonant position may be attributed to a unique Korean writing system of a spatially well-formed syllabic configuration or block with consonant(s) and a vowel. In light of a neuropsychological model of writing, which depicts a multi-level spelling and writing process, we suggest a spatial-constructional component of internal orthographic representations in Korean writing. This Korean graphemic configuration feature may be resistant to a focal, left cerebral damage, and thus, we also discuss our results in terms of cerebral lateralization of the writing processes.     

Personality,reciprocity, and strength of conflict resolution strategy

The present field study investigates how an individual’s interpersonal conflict resolution behavior is affected by the individual’s personality (assessed by the Big 5) and a situational factor (the other party’s conflict behavior), as well as how the two factors interact. A hierarchical regression analysis based on 256 student–roommate/friend dyads shows that both factors are important. Extraversion and Agreeableness were significantly related to most conflict strategies used by students. The results show that interactions between the parties in conflict situations are strongly governed by the norm of reciprocity. Finally, we found some empirical support for the interaction effect between personality and situation, suggesting that an individual’s conflict behavior is more complex than what the dispositional or the situational view may suggest.     

Age and culture modulate object processing and object—scene binding in the ventral visual area

Behavioral differences in the visual processing of objects and backgrounds as a function of cultural group are well documented. Recent neuroimaging evidence also points to cultural differences in neural activation patterns. Compared with East Asians, Westerners’ visual processing is more object focused, and they activate neural structures that reflect this bias for objects. In a recent adaptation study, East Asian older adults showed an absence of an object-processing area but normal adaptation for background areas. In the present study, 75 young and old adults (half East Asian and half Western) were tested in an fMR-adaptation study to examine differences in object and background processing as well as object—background binding. We found equivalent background processing in the parahippocampal gyrus in all four groups, diminished binding processes in the hippocampus in elderly East Asians and Westerners, and diminished object processing in elderly versus young adults in the lateral occipital complex. Moreover, elderly East Asians showed significantly less adaptation response in the object areas than did elderly Westerners. These findings demonstrate the malleability of perceptual processes as a result of differences in cohort-specific experiences or in cultural exposure over time.     

Cultural Shaping of Self,Emotion, and Well‐Being: How Does It Work?

In this paper, we review the existent literature to propose that (i) different cultures have distinct views of self, which are instrumental in organizing daily routines, practices, and public meanings, (ii) the resulting behavioral environment shapes personal motivational propensities, (iii) the behavioral environment also carries information about normative expectations about what it is to be a 'good' person, and, as a consequence, (iv) culture has substantive influences on emotion, well-being, and health. In making this proposal, we highlight the distinction between personal motivational propensities and the society's normative expectations. The consequences of the cultural views of self on personal motivational propensities and those on the society's normative expectations may typically be concordant and, yet, the concordance can be disrupted especially at times of rapid social change. Directions for future research on culture, emotion, and well-being are discussed.     

Working memory impairments in schizophrenia: a meta-analysis

Working memory (WM) deficit is a cardinal cognitive symptom of schizophrenia, but the differences among the tasks and measures used to assess WM make it difficult to compare across studies. The authors conducted a meta-analytic review to address 3 major questions: (a) Do patients with schizophrenia show WM deficits across diverse methodology; (b) Is WM deficit supramodal; and (c) Does the WM deficit worsen with longer delays? The results indicate that significant WM deficit was present in schizophrenia patients in all modalities examined. Increasing delay beyond 1 s did not influence the performance difference between schizophrenia patients and healthy control participants in WM. These results suggest that WM deficit in schizophrenia is modality independent and that encoding and/or early part of maintenance may be problematic.