A comparison of Chinese and American memories for public events

Memory for public events was compared across Chinese and U.S. participants to explore competing explanations for cultural differences in flashbulb memories. Participant recall of the canonical features of events was more detailed and more likely to include a specific time in the United States than in the Chinese reports. Vividness was positively correlated with the flashbulb memory scores only in the U.S. sample. In both cultures, emotion, national importance, and thinking about the event predicted vividness and recall of memory details. Chinese participants reported primarily disasters and social events, and their memories were more likely to include international events than U.S. participants. The U.S. participants recalled primarily political events and terrorism. These results suggest that culture has important influences on the quantity, level of detail, completeness, and vividness of autobiographical memories as well as on the types of events triggering flashbulb memories.     

Goal-driven attentional capture by invisible colors: Evidence from event-related potentials

We combined event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures to test whether subliminal visual stimuli can capture attention in a goal-dependent manner. Participants searched for visual targets defined by a specific color. Search displays served as metacontrast masks for preceding cue displays that contained one cue in the target color. Although this target-color cue was spatially uninformative, it produced behavioral spatial cuing effects and triggered an ERP correlate of attentional selection (i.e., the N2pc component). These results demonstrate that target-color cues captured attention, in spite of the fact that cue localization performance assessed in separate blocks was at chance level. We conclude that task-set contingent attentional capture is not restricted to supraliminal stimuli, but is also elicited by visual events that are not consciously perceived.     

Pedestrians at the kerb – Recognising the action intentions of humans

Aim of the presented research is the development of a cognitive driver assistance system, which can capture the traffic situation, analyse it, and warn the driver in case a pedestrian is a potential hazard. Hence parameters have to be identified by which the intention of the pedestrian can be unambiguously predicted. Two approaches to the topic are addressed. First, the pedestrian’s perspective was taken. The question was how crossing decisions were influenced by the parameters distance and velocity of the car. Following a signal, participants had to choose to cross the road in front of or behind the car. The data analysis showed that pedestrians relied on the distance of the car rather than the time to collision for their decision. In the second experiment the observer’s perspective raised the question what parameters humans use to predict pedestrians’ intentions. Videos of natural traffic scenes were presented. Participants had to make statements about whether the shown pedestrian would cross the street during the next moment. In a baseline and four experimental conditions, certain information was masked in the videos. Just the condition in which only the trajectory information of the pedestrian was available produced a higher error rate.     

Comparison of ability tests administered online and in the laboratory

As the Internet, the global medium of the future, expands exponentially, it has become increasingly relevant to scientific research. So far, there is but little evidence that online testing is suitable for collecting ability-test data. The present article aims to shed light on some aspects of the issue by comparing the performance in a computer-administered ability test of one lab sample and two online samples using a quasi-experimental design. Mean score differences appeared, but can be explained by differences in age and education, and were not due to the test setting (online vs. laboratory). Also, there were no structural differences between the achievement scores of both samples. Some limitations on generalizability are discussed.     

The role of importance/consequentiality appraisal in flashbulb memory formation: the case of the death of Pope John Paul II

This study investigates how flashbulb memories (FBMs) relative to the death of Pope John Paul II vary according to the persons' evaluation of the event's importance and consequences. In particular, FBMs were investigated in persons who were expected to attribute different degrees of importance/consequentiality to the event as a function of two factors: (1) religious involvement, (2) nationality (Polish, Italian, Swiss). The comparison was made with respect to the following hypothesized determinants of FBMs: surprise, emotional reaction, rehearsal, event memory and especially the attitudes towards the Pope and the appraisal of the importance and the consequences of his death. Structural equation modelling indicates that importance/consequentiality is a fundamental determinant of FBM and is influenced by antecedent personal and social characteristics reflected in the person's attitudes. Moreover, memory consistency seems to be both directly influenced by emotional intensity and indirectly through rehearsal, whereas surprise seems not a critical determinant of FBM. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developmental trajectory of dynamic resource utilization during walking: toddlers with and without Down syndrome

After years of walking practice 8-10-year-old children with typical development (TD) and those with Down syndrome (DS) show uniquely different but efficient use of dynamic resources to walk overground and on a treadmill [Ulrich, B.D., Haehl, V., Buzzi, U., Kubo, M., & Holt, K.G. (2004). Modeling dynamic resource utilization in populations with unique constraints: Preadolescents with and without Down syndrome. Human Movement Science, 23, 133-156]. Here we examined the use of global stiffness and angular impulse when walking emerged and across the ensuing months of practice in eight toddlers with TD and eight with DS. Participants visited our lab when first able to walk four to six steps, and at one, three, four, and six months of walking experience. For all visits, toddlers walked overground at their preferred speeds and for the last two visits on a treadmill. Toddlers with TD and DS demonstrated clear and similar developmental trajectories over this period with more similarities than differences between groups. At six months stiffness and impulse values were higher than previously observed for 8-10-year-old children. Stiffness values increased significantly throughout this period, though rate of change slowed for the TD group by three months of experience. Impulse values rose sharply initially and slowed to plateau during the latter months. Treadmill data illustrated toddlers' capacity to adapt dynamic resource use to imposed changes in speed, particularly well after six months of practice. Consistent with our studies of preadolescents and older adults, toddlers with DS produced significantly wider normalized step width than their TD peers. We propose that the challenge of upright bipedal locomotion constrains toddlers with TD and DS to generate similar, necessary and sufficient stiffness and impulse values to walk as they gain control and adapt to playful and self-imposed perturbations of gait over the first six months. The plateau in impulse and slow-down of stiffness increases over the latter months may be the first signs of a downward trend to the lower values produced by older children with several years of walking experience.     

Incidental learning of abstract rules for non-dominant word orders

One way in which adult second language learners may acquire a word order that differs from their native language word order is through exposure-based incidental learning, but little is known about that process and what constrains it. The current studies examine whether a non-dominant word order can be learned incidentally, and if so, whether the rule can be generalized to new words not previously seen in the non-dominant order. Two studies examined the incidental learning of rules underlying the order of nouns and verbs in three-word strings. The self-timed reading speeds of native English speakers decreased as a result of practice with a non-dominant rule (words ordered either as “verb noun noun” or “noun noun verb”). The same pattern of results was also found for new words ordered according to the previously encountered rule, suggesting learning generalized beyond the specific instances encountered. A second experiment showed such rule learning could also occur when the nouns were replaced with pronounceable pseudowords. Learning was therefore possible in the absence of any pre-existing relationships between the items. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed. Gwen Schmidt is now with the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania. Tom Carr has returned to the Department of Psychology, Michigan State University. Ben Clegg’s contribution to this research was supported in part by Army Research Office Grant W9112NF-05-1-0153.     

Visuospatial attention and redundancy gain

Two experiments investigated the effect of visuospatial attention on redundancy gain in simple reaction time tasks. In each trial participants were given a central arrow cue indicating where a stimulus would most likely be presented (i.e., upper or lower half of the display in Experiment 1; left or right half of the display in Experiment 2). Then, a single stimulus or two redundant stimuli could be presented in either expected or unexpected locations. Replicating previous findings, responses were faster when stimuli appeared in expected rather than unexpected locations, and they were also faster when two redundant stimuli were presented than when only one was. Critically, redundancy gain was statistically equivalent for stimuli in expected and unexpected locations, suggesting that the effect of redundancy gain arises after the perceptual processes influenced by the allocation of visuospatial attention.

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‘Now’ and ‘Then’ in Tense Logic

According to Hans Kamp and Frank Vlach, the two-dimensional tense operators “now” and “then” are ineliminable in quantified tense logic. This is often adduced as an argument against tense logic, and in favor of an extensional account that makes use of explicit quantification over times. The aim of this paper is to defend tense logic against this attack. It shows that “now” and “then” are eliminable in quantified tense logic, provided we endow it with enough quantificational structure. The operators might not be redundant in some other systems of tense logic, but this merely indicates a lack of quantificational resources and does not show any deep-seated inability of tense logic to express claims about time. The paper closes with a brief discussion of the modal analogue of this issue, which concerns the role of the actuality operator in quantified modal logic.