Perceptual weight judgments when viewing one's own and others' movements under minimalist conditions of visual presentation

Across five experiments, we investigated the parameters involved in the observation and in the execution of the action of lifting an object. The observers were shown minimal information on movements, consisting of either the working-point displacement only (ie two points representing the hand and object) or additional configural information on the kinematics of the trunk, shoulder, arm, forearm, and hand, joined by a stick diagram. Furthermore, displays showed either a participant's own movements or those of another person, when different weights were lifted. The participants' task was to estimate the weight of the lifted objects. The results revealed that, although overall performance was not dependent on the visual conditions (working point versus stick diagram) or ownership conditions (self versus other), the kinematic cues used to perform the task differed as a function of these conditions. In addition, the kinematic parameters relevant for action observation did not match those relevant for action execution. This was confirmed in experiments by using artificially altered movement samples, where the variations in critical kinematic variables were manipulated separately or in combination. We discuss the implications of these results for the roles of motor simulation and visual analysis in action observation.     

Transfer of Skills in the Context of Non‐Suggestive Investigative Interviews: Impact of Structured Interview Protocol and Feedback

Two groups of police investigators were trained in the use of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) interview protocol. After the training, one group (n = 8) received written feedback on each interview they conducted, whereas the other group (n = 11) did not. The objective of the study was, first, to evaluate the effect of NICHD protocol implementation on the types of questions and details provided by children and, second, to evaluate the impact of post‐training feedback. Interviewees were alleged sexual abuse victims between the ages of 3 and 14 years. Application of the NICHD protocol allowed interviewers to use more open‐ended questions and to obtain more details. The results show that providing feedback significantly increased the quality of the interviews. It is recommended that the NICHD protocol be used to interview child victims and witnesses and that feedback sessions be held with interviewers. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Positive emotional context eliminates the framing effect in decision-making

Dual-process theories have suggested that emotion plays a key role in the framing effect in decision-making. However, little is known about the potential impact of a specific positive or negative emotional context on this bias. We investigated this question with adult participants using an emotional priming paradigm. First, participants were presented with positive or negative affective pictures (i.e., pleasant vs. unpleasant photographs). Afterward, participants had to perform a financial decision-making task that was unrelated to the pictures previously presented. The results revealed that the presentation framed in terms of gain or loss no longer affected subjects' decision-making following specific exposure to emotionally pleasant pictures. Interestingly, a positive emotional context did not globally influence risk-taking behavior but specifically decreased the risk propensity in the loss frame. This finding confirmed that a positive emotional context can reduce loss aversion, and it strongly reinforced the dual-process view that the framing effect stems from an affective heuristic belonging to intuitive System 1. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

A nonlinear dynamic artificial neural network model of memory

Nonlinearity and dynamics in psychology are found in various domains such as neuroscience, cognitive science, human development, etc. However, the models that have been proposed are mostly of a computational nature and ignore dynamics. In those models that do include dynamic properties, only fixed points are used to store and retrieve information, leaving many principles of nonlinear dynamic systems (NDS) aside; for instance, chaos is often perceived as a nuisance. This paper considers a nonlinear dynamic artificial neural network (NDANN) that implements NDS principles while also complying with general neuroscience constraints. After a theoretical presentation, simulation results will show that the model can exhibit multi-valued, fixed-point, region-constrained attractors and aperiodic (including chaotic) behaviors. Because the capabilities of NDANN include the modeling of spatiotemporal chaotic activities, it may be an efficient tool to help bridge the gap between biological memory neural models and behavioral memory models.     

Human proactive aggression: association with personality disorders and psychopathy

Aggressive behaviors can be divided into two categories: reactive and proactive. Reactive aggressive behaviors occur in response to a stimulus or provocation. Proactive aggressive behaviors occur without provocation and are goal directed. A number of findings have suggested that individuals displaying proactive aggression may be discerned from individuals not displaying proactive aggression on measures of personality, psychopathology and psychopathy as well as in aggressive histories and type and severity of aggressive behaviors committed. In this study, subjects were recruited from a large urban community and classified as proactive (n = 20), reactive-only (n = 20) or nonaggressive (n = 10) based on laboratory behavioral testing. Subjects were administered a battery of questionnaires and structured interviews pertaining to personality disorders and psychopathy. It was hypothesized that proactive aggressive subjects would show greater numbers of personality disorders and have greater psychopathy relative to reactive-only and nonaggressive subjects. These hypotheses were supported. These results suggest that proactive aggression may be identified in a laboratory-based task, and differences between proactive and reactive-only aggressors can be detected.     

Spatial memory of domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) for hidden objects in a detour task

Spatial memory of domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) for hidden objects was investigated via a visible displacement problem of object permanence with a detour paradigm. Experiment 1 showed that dogs were able to spontaneously locate a disappearing object in a detour situation. In Experiments 2 and 3, dead reckoning and allocentric spatial information were put in conflict. Results revealed that dogs simultaneously encoded both sources of information when they had to bypass an obstacle to locate a hidden object. Experiment 3 also revealed that, over the course of testing, dogs gradually learned to rely predominantly on allocentric cues when the detour involved several reorientations. The current study reveals that spatial memory of dogs for hidden objects in a detour task was guided by flexibility in processing spatial information. Dogs could simultaneously encode dead reckoning and allocentric information to locate a disappearing object and used them hierarchically according to the complexity of the detour they encountered in the environment.     

Effects of normal aging on memory for multiple contextual features

Twenty-four younger (18-35 years) and 24 older adult participants (65 or older) were exposed to three experimental conditions involving the memorization words and their associated contextual features, with contextual feature complexity increasing from Conditions 1 to 3. In Condition 1, words presented varied only on one binary feature (color, size, or character), while in Conditions 2 and 3, words presented varied on two and three binary features, respectively. Each condition was carried out as follows: (1) learning of a word list; (2) encoding of words and their contextual features; (3) delay; and (4) memory for contextual features through a discrimination task. Results indicated that young adults discriminated more features than older adults on all conditions. In both age groups, contextual feature discrimination accuracy decreased as the number of features increased. Moreover, older adults demonstrated near floor performance when tested with two or more binary features. We conclude that increasing context complexity strains attentional resources.     

Neuroconstructivism

Neuroconstructivism is a theoretical framework focusing on the construction of representations in the developing brain. Cognitive development is explained as emerging from the experience-dependent development of neural structures supporting mental representations. Neural development occurs in the context of multiple interacting constraints acting on different levels, from the individual cell to the external environment of the developing child. Cognitive development can thus be understood as a trajectory originating from the constraints on the underlying neural structures. This perspective offers an integrated view of normal and abnormal development as well as of development and adult processing, and it stands apart from traditional cognitive approaches in taking seriously the constraints on cognition inherent to the substrate that delivers it.