The interplay of memory and judgment processes in effects of aging on hindsight bias

Hindsight bias is the phenomenon that after people are presented with the correct answer to a question, their judgment regarding their own past answer to this question is biased toward the correct answer. In three experiments, younger and older adults gave numerical responses to general-knowledge questions and later attempted to recall their responses. For some questions, the correct answer was provided during recall (Experiment 1) or before recall (Experiments 2 and 3). Multinomial model-based analyses show age differences in both recollection bias and reconstruction bias when the correct judgment was in working memory during the recall phase. The authors discuss implications for theories of cognitive aging and theories of hindsight bias.     

Positive affectivity and lifestyle in adulthood: do you do what you feel?

There is much evidence for the adaptive value of positive affect. Empirical work examining different facets of positive affect and their consequences for psychological adaptation remains sparse, however. This study (young, middle-aged, and older adults; N = 293) investigated the links between two dimensions of positive affect (positive involvement and pleasant affect) and two lifestyles (hedonic and growth related), each indicated by general value orientations, self-reported everyday activities, and activity aspirations. Structural equation models showed that pleasant affect and positive involvement constitute distinct dimensions evincing different age trends and relating differentially to hedonic and growth-related lifestyles. Specifically, pleasant affect, but not positive involvement, was related to a hedonic lifestyle, whereas positive involvement, and not pleasant affect, was associated with a growth-related lifestyle. These findings underline the importance of considering two dimensions of positive affect--pleasant feelings and positive involvement--separately when studying the link between affect and lifestyle.     

The mediating role of self-efficacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of self-efficacy in the development of students' intentions to become entrepreneurs. The authors used structural equation modeling with a sample of 265 master of business administration students across 5 universities to test their hypotheses. The results showed that the effects of perceived learning from entrepreneurship-related courses, previous entrepreneurial experience, and risk propensity on entrepreneurial intentions were fully mediated by entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Contrary to expectations, gender was not mediated by self-efficacy but had a direct effect such that women reported lower entrepreneurial career intentions. The authors discuss practical implications and directions for future research.     

Adult age differences in distinctive processing: the modality effect on false recall

Age differences in distinctive processing were investigated by examining the effects of study presentation modality on false recall in younger and older adults using the Deese/Roediger and McDermott paradigm. Participants were presented with study words either visually or auditorily. Older adults did not show the typical reduction in false recall after visual, compared to auditory, study presentation (R.E. Smith & R.R. Hunt, 1998). The authors interpret these results as evidence of reduced distinctive processing on the part of older adults.     

Age differences in emotional reactivity: the sample case of sadness

Past studies have suggested that the intensity of subjective reactions to emotion-arousing stimuli remains stable, whereas the magnitude of autonomic reactions declines with age. The goal of the present studies was to investigate whether this evidence will generalize to newly edited films dealing with age-relevant themes such as the loss of loved ones. In Study 1, greater self-reported sadness was found in older than in younger adults in response to all films. Findings of Study 2, which were based on an independent sample, replicated those of Study 1. In addition, 6 indicators of autonomic nervous system activity were assessed. Young and old adults did not differ in their autonomic reactions to the films. This evidence suggests that when older people are exposed to stimuli featuring themes that are relevant to their age group, they show greater subjective and physiological reactions than would be expected on the basis of past research.     

A multinomial model of event-based prospective memory

Prospective memory is remembering to perform an action in the future. The authors introduce the 1st formal model of event-based prospective memory, namely, a multinomial model that includes 2 separate parameters related to prospective memory processes. The 1st measures preparatory attentional processes, and the 2nd measures retrospective memory processes. The model was validated in 4 experiments. Manipulations of instructions to place importance on either the prospective memory task or the background task (Experiments 1 and 2) and manipulations of distinctiveness of prospective memory targets (Experiment 2) had expected effects on model parameters, as did a manipulation of the difficulty of prospective memory target encoding (Experiments 3 and 4). An alternative model was also evaluated.     

Proactive personality and career success.

This study examined the relationship between proactive personality and career success by surveying a sample of 496 employees (320 men and 176 women) from a diverse set of occupations and organizations. Proactive personality was positively associated with both self-reported objective (salary and promotions) and subjective (career satisfaction) indicators of career success. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that proactive personality explained additional variance in both objective and subjective career success even after controlling for several relevant variables (demographic, human capital, motivational, organizational, and industry) that have previously been found to be predictive of career outcomes. These findings were consistent using both self-report and significant--other ratings of proactive personality.     

Differential effects of visual-spatial attention on response latency and temporal-order judgment

Summary Theorists from both classical structuralism and modern attention research have claimed that attention to a sensory stimulus enhances processing speed. However, they have used different operations to measure this effect, viz., temporal-order judgment (TOJ) and reaction-time (RT) measurement. We report two experiments that compared the effect of a spatial cue on RT and TOJ. Experiment 1 demonstrated that a nonmasked, peripheral cue (the brief brightening of a box) affected both RT and TOJ. However, the former effect was significantly larger than the latter. A masked cue had a smaller, but reliable, effect on TOJ. In Experiment 2, the effects of a masked cue on RT and TOJ were compared under identical stimulus conditions. While the cue had a strong effect on RT, it left TOJ unaffected. These results suggest that a spatial cue may have dissociable effects on response processes and the processes that lead to a conscious percept. Implications for the concept of direct parameter specification and for theories of visual attention are discussed.     

Can humans perceive their brain states?

Although the brain enables us to perceive the external world and our body, it remains unknown whether brain processes themselves can be perceived. Brain tissue does not have receptors for its own activity. However, the ability of humans to acquire self-control of brain processes indicates that the perception of these processes may also be achieved by learning. In this study patients learned to control low-frequency components of their EEG: the so-called slow cortical potentials (SCPs). In particular "probe" sessions, the patients estimated the quality of the SCP shift they had produced in the preceding trial. The correspondence between the recorded SCP amplitudes and the subjective estimates increased with training. The ability to perceive the SCPs was related to the ability to control them; this perception was not mediated by peripheral variables such as changes in muscle tonus and cannot be reduced to simple vigilance monitoring. These data provide evidence that humans can learn to perceive the neural activity of their brain. Alternative interpretations are discussed.     

The effects of working memory resource availability on prospective memory: a formal modeling approach

The PAM theory of event-based prospective memory (Smith, 2003; Smith & Bayen, 2004a) proposes that successful prospective memory performance demands upon the interaction of preparatory attentional processes and retrospective memory processes. The two experiments in the current study represent the first application of a formal model to investigate the sensitivity of these underlying processes to variations in working memory resource availability. Multinomial modeling of data from prospective-memory tasks showed that working memory span influenced preparatory attentional processes and retrospective-memory processes.