The assessment of recognition memory using the Remember/Know procedure in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and probable Alzheimer’s disease

This study used the Remember/Know (R/K) procedure combined with signal detection analyses to assess recognition memory in 20 elders with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), 10 patients with probable Alzheimer’s disease (AD) as well as matched healthy older adults. Signal detection analyses first indicated that aMCI and control participants were comparable on general recognition performance. As regards AD patients, they were impaired relative to both aMCI and healthy elders. When assessing Remember and Know responses the aMCI group showed diminished sensitivity for Remember responses but intact Know responses compared to healthy elders. In contrast, AD patients showed decreased sensitivity for both Remember and Know responses compared to control and aMCI participants. The response bias index revealed that AD patients were more liberal than aMCI and control participants when providing Know responses. On the other measures, response bias was comparable between the groups. Overall, this study indicates that the R/K procedure can characterize different aspects of recognition memory performance in persons with aMCI or AD.     

Ethics Issues with Private Research Ethics Boards: A Breakout Session at the 2009 NCEHR National Conference

Research Ethics Boards (REBs) provide oversight for Canadians that research projects will comply with standards of ethics if the studies are carried out as described in the documents that have been approved. While REBs have traditionally been affiliated with institutions such as universities and hospitals, a number of factors - including the increased volume of research being conducted outside academic centres - have resulted in the establishment of some private or independent REBs. This, in turn, has raised concerns about the credibility of REBs in the private sector and their capacity to handle issues around conflict of interest. This Breakout Session was an opportunity to hear the perspectives of people associated with institutional and private REBs and examine perceived problems with boards in the private sector, scrutinize theoretical and structural differences between types of REBs, and look at whether or not there is room for both institutional and private boards in the Canadian research review landscape.     

Some Closure Properties of Finite Definitions

There is no known syntactic characterization of the class of finite definitions in terms of a set of basic definitions and a set of basic operators under which the class is closed. Furthermore, it is known that the basic propositional operators do not preserve finiteness. In this paper I survey these problems and explore operators that do preserve finiteness. I also show that every definition that uses only unary predicate symbols and equality is bound to be finite.     

La théorie de la privation relative et les réactions au handicap: Le rôle des comparaisons intrapersonnelles dans la gestion de l'estime de soi

Relative deprivation (RD) theory usually distinguishes between interpersonal and intergroup comparisons, but neglects intrapersonal comparisons. This research reveals that the comparisons between the actual and the future selves lead to relative gratification (RG) feelings which in turn are related to self‐esteem. A first study (N = 581) confirms that intrapersonal RG positively contributes to self‐esteem. A second study, involving students with a disability (n = 31) and without (n = 50), reveals that if disabled students exhibit a higher level of self‐esteem than nondisabled ones, this preservation is only explained by intrapersonal RG. Finally, intergroup RD and intrapersonal RG are two distinct predictors of militancy in favour of disabled people These results testify to the importance of differentiating comparison levels.     

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.     

Studies on latent influence by the spectrometer method I: The impact of psychologization in the case of conversion by a minority or a majority

The effects of psychologization on the conversion phenomenon were studied for cases where influence was exerted either by a minority or by a majority. In a 2×2×3 ANOVA design (minority source versus majority source, personality versus aesthetics, phases) 48 subjects are faced with a confederate who represents either 18.2 per cent or 81.8 per cent of a population and consistently responds green when an objectively blue slide is shown. Colour perception is said to be associated with either aesthetic or personality factors. The prediction is in this last case that psychologization of the majority induces conversion of the subjects, while psychologization of the minority stands in the way of this latent influence. Influence is measured by four response levels for each trial of the three phases (pre-influence, post-influence in the presence or in the absence of the influence source). Manifest influence is measured in terms of the Subjects' Judgements and by the way in which they adjust their stimulus colour perception, as determined with the help of a spectrometer. The latent influence is reflected by the subjects' judgements about the colour of the afterimage upon presentation of the stimulus, as measured on a nine-point scale and with the help of spectral adjustments of this afterimage. The subjects having been influenced without being aware of their conversion shows up in the shifts toward green or the complementary colour of green. Results indicate a cross-over for the effect of indirect influence. Under the personality condition, psychologization has the anticipated effect. The majority is the only one to produce a conversion. The attenuating effect of minority influence again manrfests itserf (Mugny and Papastamou, 1980). Under the aesthetic condition, non-psychologization also induces latent and perceptive shifts, but they go in the opposite direction and coincide closely with other results (Moscovici and Personnaz, 1980; Personnaz, 1981). In this condition, only the minority exerts an influence on all three levels.     

Situational consistency in behavioral patterns of aggressive boys: Methodological considerations on observational measures

The issue of situational consistency is of great interest for early intervention with aggressive boys, but efforts to show behavior stability across settings have been unsuccessful to date, due principally to methodological problems. It is argued here that a more appropriate matching of response form, interaction partner, and situations should increase the situation consistency of observed behavior. The results support this proposition in that, more crosssetting behavior consistency was found in the pairing of situations where aggressive boys (age 6–7 years) were interacting with an adult female (mother/child versus baby-sitter/child) than in the pairing of situations where the boys were interacting with an adult male (mother/child versus father/child) or with the teacher in a nondyadic situation (classroom). The implications of using an extreme group are also discussed.This research program was funded by Le Conseil Québécois de la Recherche Sociale, the Quebec Government's FCAR research program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Ministry of Employment and Immigration, and the University of Montreal FDR program.     

Structured meanings and reflexive domains

This paper is about the most important technical problem faced by Structured Meanings Semantics: the reiteration of hyperintensional functors (i.e., functors of -categorial languages of the sort defined by Max Cresswell in [6]). A way to solve this problem in a general and natural way by using Scott's Domains is both suggested and shown. The result is a semantics which unrestrictedly allows reiterations of hyperintensional functors. The semantics is also extended to accommodate -categorial languages with variables.I would like to thank Johan van Benthem, Harold Shellinx, Willem Groenelveld and Bruce Toombs for their useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This work was supported in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (doctoral fellowship 452-88-2518).