The impact of stress on neutral and emotional aspects of episodic memory

The present experiment demonstrates that exposure to a significant psychological stressor (administered before watching a slide show) preserves or even enhances memory for emotional aspects of an event, and simultaneously disrupts memory for non-emotional aspects of the same event. Stress exposure also disrupted memory for information that was visually and thematically central to the event depicted in the slide show. Memory for peripheral information, on the other hand, was unaffected by stress. These results are consistent with theories invoking differential effects of stress on brain systems responsible for encoding and retrieving emotional memories (the amygdala) and non-emotional memories (e.g., the hippocampal formation), and inconsistent with the view that memories formed under high levels of stress are qualitatively the same as those formed under ordinary emotional circumstances. These data, which are also consistent with results obtained in a number of studies using animals and humans, have implications for the traumatic memory debate and theories regarding human memory.     

Bimanual coordination in chronic schizophrenia

Anomalies of movement are observed both clinically and experimentally in schizophrenia. While the basal ganglia have been implicated in its pathogenesis, the nature of such involvement is equivocal. The basal ganglia may be involved in bimanual coordination through their input to the supplementary motor area (SMA). While a neglected area of study in schizophrenia, a bimanual movement task may provide a means of assessing the functional integrity of the motor circuit. Twelve patients with chronic schizophrenia and 12 matched control participants performed a bimanual movement task on a set of vertically mounted cranks at different speeds (1 and 2 Hz) and phase relationships. Participants performed in-phase movements (hands separated by 0 degrees ) and out-of-phase movements (hands separated by 180 degrees ) at both speeds with an external cue on or off. All participants performed the in-phase movements well, irrespective of speed or cueing conditions. Patients with schizophrenia were unable to perform the out-of-phase movements, particularly at the faster speed, reverting instead to the in-phase movement. There was no effect of external cueing on any of the movement conditions. These results suggest a specific problem of bimanual coordination indicative of SMA dysfunction per se and/or faulty callosal integration. A disturbance in the ability to switch attention during the out-of-phase task may also be involved.     

Unilateral hemispheric activation does not affect free-viewing perceptual asymmetries

Strong leftward perceptual biases have been reported for the selection of the darker of two left/right mirror-reversed luminance gradients under free-viewing conditions. This study investigated the effect of unilateral hemispheric activation on this leftward bias in two groups of dextrals (N = 52 and N = 24). In Experiment 1, activation was manipulated by asking participants to tap with their left or right fingers along their midline. In Experiment 2, participants clenched their left or right hands in their respective hemispaces. Participants selected the stimulus that was darker on the left-hand side 73% of the time. Despite manipulations of activation strength and hemispace, activation had no effect on the asymmetry. If activation was important, the leftward bias should have been enhanced when the left hand/right hemisphere was active and reduced (or reversed) when the right hand/left hemisphere was active. The contribution of left-to-right scanning biases to free-viewing perceptual asymmetries is discussed as an alternative.     

"God,why did this happen to me?": three perspectives on theodicy

This article closely examines the way three people dealt with the theodicy question. The three study subjects participated in extended interviews about their religious beliefs and activities, past and present. The interviews were summarized and analyzed to identify the person's religious resources, statements about theodicy, and mental well-being. The subjects' comments highlight the unique and diverse ways in which people wrestle with theodicy. They also indicate that dealing with the question can extend over many years. Implications for ministry are discussed.     

Perceptual asymmetries in normal children and children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Perceptual asymmetries in normal right-handed children (7-12 years of age) and children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), combined type, were investigated using various chimeric stimuli in free-viewing conditions. In the face-matching task, participants indicated which of two symmetrical face chimeras more closely resembled the original; in the chimeric faces task, participants indicated which of a pair of faces appeared happier; and in the grey scales task participants indicated which of two shaded rectangles appeared to be darker overall. Leftward biases were found for normal children with no effects of age. Contrary to expectations, normal leftward biases were also found for ADHD children in the face-matching and the chimeric faces tasks; however, a significant leftward bias was not observed in the grey scales task. The absence of anomalous perceptual bias in ADHD children on these purely perceptual tasks, suggests that anomalous perceptual asymmetries observed in other tasks (line bisection and cancellation tasks) may have been confounded by the motor response, and/or the explicit spatial components of those tasks.     

Explaining the Relationship between Religiosity and Political Participation: The Mediating Roles of Transcendent Accountability and Religiopolitical Awareness

Prior research tends to find a positive relationship between religiosity and political participation. Explanations of this relationship have focused mostly on religiosity-generated organizational resources (e.g., civic skills), while paying less attention to psychological resources. We simultaneously examined different aspects of religiosity (belief, behavior, and belonging) and political participation (electoral and nonelectoral) in a structural equation model with two psychological resources as mediators: (1) “transcendent accountability”—seeing oneself as responsible to God or a higher power for one's impact on other people and the environment, and (2) “religiopolitical awareness”—perceiving the influence of one's religion and/or spirituality on one's political views and activities. Results from analyzing survey data from a US representative sample showed that transcendent accountability and religiopolitical awareness, whether together or awareness only, mediated positive relationships between religiosity (belief, private and public behaviors, and membership) and political participation (voting and other political activity), highlighting key psychological motivators of political participation.     

Estimating sample-size requirements in research design: A study of intuitive statistical judgment

Subjects were given an experimental task in which they had to play the role of a quality-control researcher for a company. They had to consider a hypothetical experiment that involves testing a sample of batteries from a truck load, which may or may not be substandard. In the main experiment, subjects were given information about the prior probability of substandard truck loads (base rate), the degree of variability of battery life, and the mean difference between standard and substandard batteries, all of which are formally relevant to the decision, and they were also told the number of batteries in the truck (population size) that is formally irrelevant. The task was to decide (intuitively) how many batteries to test to achieve a specified error rate using a specified decision rule. In a second study, subjects were given a similar scenario, but asked to rate which pieces of information would be relevant to the decision. Subjects showed themselves to be sensitive to the effects of sample variability and base rate when making intuitive design decisions, though an odd effect of the mean difference factor was observed. There is also clear confirmation of a bias-to-weight sample size by population size as reported in earlier research using different kinds of judgmental tasks.     

Reading mirror-reversed text: sinistrals really are inferior

R. Tankle and K. M. Heilman (1982, Brain and Language, 17, 124-132) reported a sinistral superiority in obligatory reading of left-right mirror-reversed material. Their subjects included weak left- and right-handers. J. L. Bradshaw, N. C. Nettleton, L. Wilson, and V. Burden (1985, Brain and Language, 26, 322-331) employed a variety of geometrically transformed text, including mirror-reversed, and found that strong familial sinistrals were either not different from or were even slightly inferior to dextrals in reading most transformations, including left-right mirror reversals. We now report a study using subjects selected according to criteria similar to those of Tankle and Heilman, and find under these conditions that sinistrals are indeed significantly inferior to dextrals.     

Line bisection by left-handed preschoolers: A phenomenon of symmetrical neglect

When a normal dextral attempts to bisect a horizontal line placed across his/her midline, there is a tendency for the transection to be placed slightly to the left of true center, a tendency which may be a little more pronounced when the left hand is used. However, left-handed children at or younger than 5 years of age err substantially to the left with the left hand and to the right with the right hand. This symmetrical neglect of extents contralateral to the hand currently in use, which may possibly reflect relatively greater commissural immaturity in left-handers, was not seen in dextral children of comparable ages, whose performance closely followed adult patterns.