Formation of semantic associations between subliminally presented face-word pairs

Recent evidence suggests that consciousness of encoding is not necessary for the rapid formation of new semantic associations. We investigated whether unconsciously formed associations are as semantically precise as would be expected for associations formed with consciousness of encoding during episodic memory formation. Pairs of faces and written occupations were presented subliminally for unconscious associative encoding. Five minutes later, the same faces were presented suprathreshold for the cued unconscious retrieval of face-occupation associations. Retrieval instructions required participants to classify the presented individuals according to their putative (1) regularity of income, (2) length of education, and (3) creativity value of occupational activity. The three instructions yielded more classifications consistent with a person’s occupation if the person had been subliminally presented with his written occupation versus a meaningless word (control condition). This suggests that consciousness is not necessary to encode, long-term store, and retrieve semantically precise associations between primarily unrelated items.     

The Bootstrap Discovery Behaviour (BDB): a new outlook on usability evaluation

The value of λ is one of the main issues debated in international usability studies. The debate is centred on the deficiencies of the mathematical return on investment model (ROI model) of Nielsen and Landauer (1993). The ROI model is discussed in order to identify the base of another model that, respecting Nielsen and Landauer’s one, tries to consider a large number of variables for the estimation of the number of evaluators needed for an interface. Using the bootstrap model (Efron 1979), we can take into account: (a) the interface properties, as the properties at zero condition of evaluation and (b) the probability that the population discovery behaviour is represented by all the possible discovery behaviours of a sample. Our alternative model, named Bootstrap Discovery Behaviour (BDB), provides an alternative estimation of the number of experts and users needed for a usability evaluation. Two experimental groups of users and experts are involved in the evaluation of a website (). Applying the BDB model to the problems identified by the two groups, we found that 13 experts and 20 users are needed to identify 80% of usability problems, instead of 6 experts and 7 users required according to the estimation of the discovery likelihood provided by the ROI model. The consequence of the difference between the results of those models is that in following the BDB the costs of usability evaluation increase, although this is justified considering that the results obtained have the best probability of representing the entire population of experts and users.     

Aging affects attunement in perceiving length by dynamic touch

Earlier studies have revealed age-dependent differences in perception by dynamic touch. In the present study, we examined whether the capacity to learn deteriorates with aging. Adopting an ecological approach to learning, the authors examined the process of attunement--that is, the changes in what informational variable is exploited. Young and elderly adults were trained to perceive the lengths of unseen, handheld rods. It was found that the capacity to attune declines with aging: Contrary to the young adults, the elderly proved unsuccessful in learning to detect the specifying informational variables. The fact that aging affects the capacity to attune sets a new line of research in the study of perception and perceptual-motor skills of elderly. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for the ongoing discussions on the ecological approach to learning.     

The reliability and validity of the panic disorder self-report: a new diagnostic screening measure of panic disorder

This study examined the Panic Disorder Self-Report (PDSR), a new self-report diagnostic measure of panic disorder based on the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). PDSR diagnoses were compared with structured interview diagnoses of individuals with generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, and panic disorder and nonanxious controls. Receiver operating characteristic analyses revealed that the PDSR showed 100% specificity and 89% sensitivity. The PDSR also demonstrated retest reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, and kappa agreement of .93 with a structured interview. Finally, the PDSR demonstrated clinical validity. Students who were identified as having panic disorder using the PDSR did not have significantly different scores on the Panic Disorder Severity Scale--Self-Report form (P. R. Houck, D. A. Speigel, M. K. Shear, & P. Rucci, 2002) than a panic disordered community sample. However, both groups had significantly higher scores than students identified as not meeting criteria for panic disorder.     

Serial migration and its implications for the parent-child relationship: a retrospective analysis of the experiences of the children of Caribbean immigrants

This study addressed the potential impact of serial migration for parent-children relationships and for children's psychological well-being. The experience of being separated from their parents during childhood and reunited with them at a later time was retrospectively examined for 48 individuals. A series of measures (e.g., self-esteem, parental identification) associated with appraisals at critical time periods during serial migration (separation, reunion, current) revealed that serial migration can potentially disrupt parent-child bonding and unfavorably affect children's self-esteem and behavior. Time did not appear to be wholly effective in repairing rifts in the parent-child relationship. Risk factors for less successful reunions included lengthy separations and the addition of new members to the family unit in the child's absence.     

Changes in personality pathology after pharmacotherapy and combined therapy for depressed patients

The central question addressed by this article is whether courses of treatment consisting of pharmacotherapy or pharmacotherapy combined with psychotherapy (combined therapy) produce different changes in personality pathology at follow-up after 40 weeks. We also examined whether recovery from depression has an influence on outcome. The study population consisted of 128 outpatients in whom personality pathology and severity of depression were determined at the start of the study. For 72 patients, personality pathology and severity of depression were determined again after 40 weeks. Of the group of 72 patients, 25 patients received only pharmacotherapy for 6 months, and 47 patients received combined treatment (pharmacotherapy and psychodynamic supportive psychotherapy). The antidepressant protocol provides for three successive steps in case of intolerance or inefficacy: fluoxetine, amitriptyline, and moclobemide. The combined therapy condition consisted of 16 sessions of Short Psychodynamic Supportive Psychotherapy in addition to pharmacotherapy. In the combined therapy condition there was a significant reduction in personality pathology in patients who recovered from depression but also in patients who had not. In the pharmacotherapy condition the significant decrease was restricted to patients who recovered from depression. The results were most striking for Cluster C psychopatology. Patients with cluster B pathology changed the least. Depressed patients with comorbid personality pathology appear to benefit most from a combination of pharmacotherapy and a form of short, psychodynamic, supportive psychotherapy.     

Exploring mechanisms that affect retrograde memory for public events in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: A longitudinal update

Here, we examined mechanisms that affect retrograde memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI) as a function of longitudinal clinical outcome. 8 a-MCI who converted to Alzheimer's dementia (AD) during the subsequent 3-year follow-up (converter a-MCI) and 10 a-MCI who remained clinically stable during the same period (stable a-MCI) were compared at the baseline evaluation (i.e., when they were diagnosed as a-MCI) using a remote memory questionnaire for public events that allows disentangling the differential contribution of storage and retrieval mechanisms to performance accuracy. Results suggest that deficits in remote memory are primarily explained by impaired retrieval abilities in stable a-MCI and by impaired storage in converter-to-AD a-MCI. This distinction between retrograde amnesia due to defective trace utilisation in stable a-MCI and trace storage in converter a-MCI is consistent with the temporal unfolding of declining anterograde memory over the course of disease progression to AD.     

Monitoring the future: object and source memory for real and imagined events

In these experiments a memory‐monitoring decision is made, whereby subjects must decide not only whether or not to‐be‐learned stimuli will be remembered—the focus of all of the past research into the Judgement of Learning (JOL)—but also whether they will be able to assess the source of those stimuli, as assessed by a new measure, Judgement of Source (JOS). In Experiment 1 subjects had to judge whether they would remember the occurrence and the source of items that were either seen or imagined. Although seen items were better remembered and sourced than imagined, subjects were unable to predict this outcome: they underestimated their ability to recall seen items and overestimated their ability to recall imagined items. In Experiment 2 subjects had to discriminate between self‐performed or other‐performed enacted or imagined events. We expected that the motor cues associated with overt performance should provide more sensory information than had the visual input in Experiment 1, and this should help subjects to discriminate between real and imagined items. As predicted, JOL magnitude showed that subjects were now able to predict accurately that they would recall more enacted events than imagined events. JOS magnitude showed that subjects incorrectly predicted that self‐enactment would assist source memory compared to imagination. However, it was the source of other‐focused events which was more accurately remembered. The results are discussed in terms of Koriat's (1997) view about cue utility in making JOLs. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimating the quantitative relation between incongruent information and response time

In Eriksen's flanker paradigm, participants' responses are slower and more error-prone when task-relevant and simultaneously available task-irrelevant cues are incongruent. The influence of task-irrelevant information decreases as its distance from the task-relevant information increases. Here, we manipulated the quantity of task-irrelevant information while keeping the distance constant. We asked whether when the impact on response selection processes was stronger the more incongruent information was available, or whether the impact on response selection depended only on its presence or absence. We conducted an experiment, in which subjects had to discriminate the direction of motion of a central point-light-walker that was flanked by two, four, or eight point-light-walkers at an equal distance from the center. The experiment showed that reaction times increased with the number of incongruent walkers. This effect was modulated by the total number of walkers, showing that the effect of incongruent information saturates when the display is cluttered.