Changing brains, changing perspectives: the neurocognitive development of reciprocity

Adolescence is characterized by the emergence of advanced forms of social perspective taking and significant changes in social behavior. Yet little is known about how changes in social cognition are related to changes in brain function during adolescence. In this study, we investigated the neural correlates of social behavior during three phases of adolescence, carrying out functional magnetic resonance imaging of participants' brains while they were Player 2 in the Trust Game. We found that with age, adolescents were increasingly sensitive to the perspective of the other player, as indicated by their reciprocal behavior. These advanced forms of social perspective-taking behavior were associated with increased involvement of the left temporo-parietal junction and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In contrast, young adolescents showed more activity in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, a region previously associated with self-oriented processing and mentalizing. These findings suggest that the asynchronous development of these neural systems may underlie the shift from thinking about self to thinking about the other.     

Introduction to the Special Issue: The Social Psychology of Academic Achievement: Progress and Prospects

Social Psychology of Education -     

Determinants of retrieval solutions during cognitive skill training: Source confusions

Diverse outcomes, both facilitative and disruptive, have been reported for the effect of interpolated item recognition tests on the acquisition of a cognitive skill. We collected data from a repeated set of 12 artificial arithmetic problems, soliciting compute/retrieve strategy reports after every trial. In one condition, a recognition test was administered after every three blocks of training. Recognition testing was found to depress retrieve frequencies in both younger and older adults, particularly for newly acquired items. Pairing training items with similar recognition foils mitigated these effects. This pattern of results could be explained by assuming that the participants based compute/retrieve decisions on item familiarity or frequency, tracked across both skill trials and recognition trials, and on a threshold influenced by source confusion. Variations in the threshold parameter could lead to depressed reports of item retrieval (our findings) or to elevated retrieval decisions, as has been shown in some other studies.     

Women’s Perceptions and Use of “Anti-Aging” Products

Recent advances in the cosmetics industry have accelerated the availability of products marketed as “anti-aging.” Our research goals were to identify the factors that predict women’s purchase of these products, and to gain insight into women’s perceptions of the anti-aging market. Three hundred and four Canadian women were surveyed about their use of anti-aging products, body satisfaction, aging anxiety, appearance importance, sociocultural pressures and self-esteem, as well as open-ended responses about their perceptions of anti-aging products. Greater aging anxiety and higher importance of appearance were related to greater likelihood of purchasing anti-aging products. Women also described an interesting paradox whereby they report using these products while remaining critical of media messages and embracing the idea of natural aging.     

PASTIS: A program for curve and distribution analyses

Reaction time (RT) data afford different types of analyses. One type of analysis, called “curve analysis,” can be used to characterize the evolution of performance at different moments over the course of learning. By contrast, distribution analysis aims at characterizing the spread of RTs at a specific moment. Techniques to deduce free parameters are described for both types of analyses, given an a priori choice of the curve or distribution one wants to fit, along with statistical tests of significance for distribution analysis: The log likelihood technique is used if the probability density function is given; otherwise, a root-mean-square-deviation minimization technique is used. A program—PASTIS—that searches for the optimal parameters of the following curves is presented: power law, exponential, and e-based exponential. PASTIS also searches for Weibull and the ex-Gaussian distributions. Some tests of the software are presented.     

Length effect in reading and lexical decision: evidence from skilled readers and a developmental dyslexic participant

A number of experimental data have shown that naming latency increases with length for pseudo-words but not for frequent real words. Different interpretations have been proposed by current models of reading to account for such a length effect. The aim of the present study was to assess the impact of lexicality on length effect in both the reading and lexical decision tasks. For this purpose, skilled readers were asked to either name or make a lexical decision on words and pseudo-words differing in length from one to three syllables. Skilled readers' results show that length effect is modulated by lexicality in the reading task but no length effect was found in the lexical decision task. The tasks were further proposed to a well-compensated dyslexic participant who exhibited a visual attentional disorder in the absence of any associated phonological problems. A length effect on RTs was found for both words and pseudo-words in lexical decision but naming latencies were affected by length for the pseudo-words only. The present results largely conform to the predictions of the ACV98 model of reading. They are not compatible with the PDP models of reading and can only be partially accounted for by dual route models.     

Stress modulation of cognitive and affective processes

This review summarizes the major discussion points of a symposium on stress modulation of cognitive and affective processes, which was held during the 2010 workshop on the neurobiology of stress (Boulder, CO, USA). The four discussants addressed a number of specific cognitive and affective factors that are modulated by exposure to acute or repeated stress. Dr David Morilak discussed the effects of various repeated stress situations on cognitive flexibility, as assessed with a rodent model of attentional set-shifting task, and how performance on slightly different aspects of this test is modulated by different prefrontal regions through monoaminergic neurotransmission. Dr Serge Campeau summarized the findings of several studies exploring a number of factors and brain regions that regulate habituation of various autonomic and neuroendocrine responses to repeated audiogenic stress exposures. Dr Kerry Ressler discussed a body of work exploring the modulation and extinction of fear memories in rodents and humans, especially focusing on the role of key neurotransmitter systems including excitatory amino acids and brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Dr Israel Liberzon presented recent results on human decision-making processes in response to exogenous glucocorticoid hormone administration. Overall, these discussions are casting a wider framework on the cognitive/affective processes that are distinctly regulated by the experience of stress and some of the brain regions and neurotransmitter systems associated with these effects.     

What some effects might not be: The time to verify membership in 'well-defined' categories

Armstrong, Gleitman, and Gleitman (1983) reported shorter categorization times for members of well-defined categories judged more typical. They concluded that these effects could not originate in a graded, similarity-based category representation and consequently that the typicality effects obtained with natural categories might not be indicative of such a structure either. In this article, we re-examine this conclusion, focusing first on the performance obtained with well-defined categories of different sizes. Only the larger categories used showed variations in typicality ratings and produced typicality effects on categorization times. However,multiple regression analyses showed the effects on categorization times to be better explained by a measure of associative strength, called category dominance. The range of various predictor variables was equated in a follow-up experiment involving large, natural, and well-defined categories. Results obtained with well-defined categories showed pronounced dominance effects when typicality was controlled, but no reliable typicality effect when category dominance and instance familiarity were controlled. Results were opposite for natural categories. By showing that well-defined categories fail to produce unbiased typicality effects, our results bring added support to the hypothesis that the effects obtained with natural categories originate in a graded, similarity-based category structure.     

False memories: young and older adults think of semantic associates at the same rate, but young adults are more successful at source monitoring

Two experiments explored whether the higher vulnerability to false memories in the DRM (J. Deese, 1959; H. L. Roediger & K. B. McDermott, 1995) paradigm in older compared to young adults reflects a deficit in source monitoring. In both experiments, adding together the number of falsely recalled critical lures and the number of critical lures produced on a post-recall test asking participants to report items that they had thought of but did not recall, indicated that the critical lures were activated during the experiment equally often in young and older adults. However, older adults were more likely than young adults to say that they had actually heard the lures. When strongly encouraged to examine the origin of memories (Experiment 2), the warning substantially reduced false recall in young but not older adults. These results are consistent with the idea that older adults have more difficulty later identifying the source of information that was activated as a consequence of intact semantic activation processes.