Searching for serial refreshing in working memory: Using response times to track the content of the focus of attention over time

One popular idea is that, to support the maintenance of a set of elements over brief periods of time, the focus of attention rotates among the different elements, thereby serially refreshing the content of working memory (WM). In the research reported here, probe letters were presented between to-be-remembered letters, and response times to these probes were used to infer the status of the different items in WM. If the focus of attention cycles from one item to the next, its content should be different at different points in time, and this should be reflected in a change in the response time patterns over time. Across a set of four experiments, we demonstrated a striking pattern of invariance in the response time patterns over time, suggesting either that the content of the focus of attention did not change over time or that response times cannot be used to infer the content of the focus of attention. We discuss how this pattern constrains models of WM, attention, and human information processing.     

Parenting Cognition and Affective Outcomes Following Parent Management Training: A Systematic Review

Parent management training (PMT) is considered the gold standard in the treatment of child behavior problems. The secondary effects of these interventions, particularly on parent well-being, are infrequently studied, despite evidence that parents of children with behavior problems often experience personal difficulties. This narrative review examined the affective and parenting cognition outcomes of PMT for mothers and fathers of children ages 2–13 years, across 48 controlled treatment studies. Substantial support was found for reductions in parenting stress, and increases in perceived parenting competence following PMT. Evidence indicated fewer improvements in domains more distal from parenting, including parent depressive symptoms and marital relationship dysfunction. A number of studies suggested parent gender as a moderator of parent outcomes of PMT; however, the underrepresentation of fathers in existing research limits conclusions in this regard. Avenues for future research are highlighted to address current gaps in the literature, and to further our understanding of the ways in which both children and parents may benefit from PMT.     

The differential effects of emotional salience on direct associative and relational memory during a nap

Relational memories are formed from shared components between directly learned memory associations, flexibly linking learned information to better inform future judgments. Sleep has been found to facilitate both direct associative and relational memories. However, the impact of incorporating emotionally salient information into learned material and the interaction of emotional salience and sleep in facilitating both types of memory is unknown. Participants encoded two sets of picture pairs, with either emotionally negative or neutral objects paired with neutral faces. The same objects were present in both sets, paired with two different faces across the sets. Baseline memory for these directly paired associates was tested immediately after encoding, followed by either a 90-min nap opportunity or wakefulness. Five hours after learning, a surprise test assessed relational memory, the indirect association between two faces paired with the same object during encoding, followed by a retest of direct associative memory. Overall, negative information was remembered better than neutral for directly learned pairs. A nap facilitated both preservation of direct associative memories and formation of relational memories, compared to remaining awake. Interestingly, however, this sleep benefit was observed specifically for neutral directly paired associates, while both neutral and negative relational associations benefitted from a nap. Finally, REM sleep played opposing roles in neutral direct and relational associative memory formation, with more REM sleep leading to forgetting of direct associations but promoting relational associations, suggesting that, while not benefitting memory consolidation for directly learned details, REM sleep may foster the memory reorganization needed for relational memory.     

Addressing the role of personality,ability, and positive and negative affect in positive psychology interventions: Findings from a randomized intervention based on the authentic happiness theory and extensions

The present study explores the role of personality, ability, and affect in a randomized, group-based positive psychology intervention program based on Seligman’s authentic happiness theory and extensions. A total of 100 adults (M = 45.7, SD = 12.8) were randomly assigned to the 12-week intervention program (five training sessions) or a waiting list control group. The intervention consisted of basic information, group activities, and homework assignments. Participants in the intervention group demonstrated higher levels of happiness, pleasure, and engagement after completion of the program. Baseline levels of psychometric intelligence moderated the intervention effectiveness (greater effects for those higher in reasoning, vocabulary, and general intelligence). There were no effects for the big five personality traits. Finally, increases in positive affect before and after the homework assignment were associated with greater levels of happiness after the program. The relevance of these findings for the development of new programs is discussed.     

Judging deservingness and affect in relation to another's employment or unemployment: a test of a justice model

In a study that was based on a structural model of deservingness, 24 male and 80 female undergraduate students responded to scenarios in which either a liked or disliked unemployed stimulus person expended either high or low effort and then either obtained employment or remained unemployed. Results showed that, when the outcome was employment, judgements of responsibility, deservingness, and pleasure about the successful outcome were higher when the stimulus person expended high effort rather than low effort. When the outcome was unemployment, judgements of responsibility, deservingness, and reported pleasure about the unsuccessful outcome were higher when the stimulus person displayed low effort rather than high effort in seeking a job and participants reported feeling less sympathetic and more annoyed with the stimulus person and less inclined to provide financial assistance. Liking relations had most effects in the employed condition. The employed outcome elicited more reported pleasure and less resentment for the liked stimulus person and he or she was judged to be more responsible for and more deserving of employment than the disliked stimulus person. The results were discussed in relation to component balanced and unbalanced structures within the structural model and they also suggested some elaboration of the responsibility variable. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Correction to: Values of love: two forms of infinity characteristic of human persons

The original version of this article unfortunately contains incorrect article title and incorrect data in the body text     

Stimulus Parameters Underlying Sound-Symbolic Mapping of Auditory Pseudowords to Visual Shapes

Sound symbolism refers to non-arbitrary mappings between the sounds of words and their meanings and is often studied by pairing auditory pseudowords such as “maluma” and “takete” with rounded and pointed visual shapes, respectively. However, it is unclear what auditory properties of pseudowords contribute to their perception as rounded or pointed. Here, we compared perceptual ratings of the roundedness/pointedness of large sets of pseudowords and shapes to their acoustic and visual properties using a novel application of representational similarity analysis (RSA). Representational dissimilarity matrices (RDMs) of the auditory and visual ratings of roundedness/pointedness were significantly correlated crossmodally. The auditory perceptual RDM correlated significantly with RDMs of spectral tilt, the temporal fast Fourier transform (FFT), and the speech envelope. Conventional correlational analyses showed that ratings of pseudowords transitioned from rounded to pointed as vocal roughness (as measured by the harmonics-to-noise ratio, pulse number, fraction of unvoiced frames, mean autocorrelation, shimmer, and jitter) increased. The visual perceptual RDM correlated significantly with RDMs of global indices of visual shape (the simple matching coefficient, image silhouette, image outlines, and Jaccard distance). Crossmodally, the RDMs of the auditory spectral parameters correlated weakly but significantly with those of the global indices of visual shape. Our work establishes the utility of RSA for analysis of large stimulus sets and offers novel insights into the stimulus parameters underlying sound symbolism, showing that sound-to-shape mapping is driven by acoustic properties of pseudowords and suggesting audiovisual cross-modal correspondence as a basis for language users' sensitivity to this type of sound symbolism.     

When the bullied peer is native-born vs. immigrant: A mixed-method study with a sample of native-born and immigrant adolescents

An increasing number of immigrant students attend Italian schools, with the possibility of being involved in bullying episodes. A few studies have investigated this phenomenon, providing some evidence that immigrant students may face an increased risk of being bullied compared to native-born students. The present study adopted a mixed-method design, which may better detect the dynamics of bullying towards immigrant peers. Participants were 692 native-born and immigrant students (20.5% with immigrant background; 54.8% females) who filled in self-report measures about their bullying experiences, popularity, acceptance of diversity at school, and prejudice. Thirty-five pupils (54% with immigrant background) were also interviewed. Two hypothetical bullying scenarios were presented: one depicting a native-born victim and one depicting an immigrant victim. After each scenario, adolescents were encouraged to reason about the motives for bullying. Quantitative data showed that general bullying was associated with perceived popularity status among peers, while racial bullying was associated with prejudice but not peer status. The relevance of anti-immigrant prejudices in driving racial bullying emerged also from adolescents’ interviews. The qualitative data indicated that among the reasons for bullying, adolescents mentioned a desire for dominance and popularity, in particular when the victim was non-immigrant. Findings suggest that, in addition to individual and peer group-related risk factors, prejudice also needs to be addressed in anti-bullying interventions aimed to counteract racial bullying.     

Can rapport building strategies,age, and question type influence preschoolers’ disclosures of adult wrongdoing?

In the present experiment, we examined preschoolers’ disclosures of a secret as a function of rapport building strategies used in Scandinavian field settings (verbal rapport building vs. prop rapport building), age in months (33–75 months) and question type (open-ended free recall invitation vs. suggestive questions). Fifty-three preschoolers (M = 60.5 months old, SD = 11.4) witnessed a researcher break a toy and were asked to keep the toy breakage a secret. The children were thereafter interviewed about the incident. Overall, 18.9% of the children disclosed the secret after an open-ended free recall invitation. The disclosure rate rose to 83% after the final phase of the interviews when questions containing suggestive details were asked of the children. Notably, we did not observe any significant effects as a function of manipulating rapport building strategy. A linear regression model showed that child age (in months) significantly predicted the amount of reported details, with younger preschoolers reporting fewer details compared to older preschoolers. Age also predicted the amount of correct details, but not the amount of incorrect details. No age differences were found with regard to children’s disclosure tendencies or proportion of central details about the secret. Methodological limitations and practical implications will be addressed.