Life Experiences Throughout the Lifespan: What Do People Say (or Not) About Them?

Life experiences have been a topic of interest for researchers and clinicians for decades. Current knowledge is rooted in two distinct approaches, i.e., personality psychology and psychosomatics. Whereas the first is interested in ordinary life stories of nonclinical individuals, based on a more qualitative, in-depth, and person-driven approach, psychosomatics stresses negative events, mainly in clinical samples, and presents a more quantitative, general, and construct-driven approach. Consequently, available evidence is dispersed and unrelated and many basic questions remain unanswered. This study aimed to explore occurrence, developmental stage, valence, and impact of life experiences and to analyze critical answering patterns (i.e., “I don’t remember,” missingness). Through a cross-sectional retrospective design, 394 adults from the community answered the Lifetime Experiences Scale, which covers 75 life experiences organized in eight domains (i.e., school, job, health, leisure, living conditions, adverse experiences, achievements, and people and relationships). Occurrence of life experiences varied greatly, and the mean number of experiences reported was approximately 30. Regarding developmental stage, most experiences were reported in just one stage—mainly adulthood—however, some could be considered chronic. Globally, life experiences tended to be clearly rated as positive or as negative; additionally, assessed experiences were mainly appraised as positive. Moreover, participants presented their experiences as significant, rating them as high impact. Overall, critical answering patterns were not very expressive: “I don’t remember” and missing answers were below 2 and 5%, respectively, in the majority of experiences. These findings offer several important new insights, suggesting that life experiences are mainly an idiosyncratic topic.     

Age-related differences in brain electrical activity during extended continuous face recognition in younger children, older children and adults

To examine the development of recognition memory in primary-school children, 36 healthy younger children (8-9 years old) and 36 healthy older children (11-12 years old) participated in an ERP study with an extended continuous face recognition task (Study 1). Each face of a series of 30 faces was shown randomly six times interspersed with distracter faces. The children were required to make old vs. new decisions. Older children responded faster than younger children, but younger children exhibited a steeper decrease in latencies across the five repetitions. Older children exhibited better accuracy for new faces, but there were no age differences in recognition accuracy for repeated faces. For the N2, N400 and late positive complex (LPC), we analyzed the old/new effects (repetition 1 vs. new presentation) and the extended repetition effects (repetitions 1 through 5). Compared to older children, younger children exhibited larger frontocentral N2 and N400 old/new effects. For extended face repetitions, negativity of the N2 and N400 decreased in a linear fashion in both age groups. For the LPC, an ERP component thought to reflect recollection, no significant old/new or extended repetition effects were found. Employing the same face recognition paradigm in 20 adults (Study 2), we found a significant N400 old/new effect at lateral frontal sites and a significant LPC repetition effect at parietal sites, with LPC amplitudes increasing linearly with the number of repetitions. This study clearly demonstrates differential developmental courses for the N400 and LPC pertaining to recognition memory for faces. It is concluded that face recognition in children is mediated by early and probably more automatic than conscious recognition processes. In adults, the LPC extended repetition effect indicates that adult face recognition memory is related to a conscious and graded recollection process rather than to an automatic recognition process.     

The effect of visual word features on the acquisition of orthographic knowledge

Research with adults has shown that the distortion of visual word features, and in particular of the multiletter features within words, hampers word recognition. In this study, "CaSe MiXiNg" was employed to examine the effect of disrupting visual word features on the acquisition of orthographic knowledge in children. During the training, 18 beginning and 27 advanced readers (in Grades 2, 4, and 5) repeatedly read a set of pseudowords in either lowercase or mixed case. During this training, case mixing appeared to impair reading speed in both reader groups. At posttest, 1 day after the training, case format was either the same as or different from that during the training. Lowercase pseudowords were recognized faster after a lowercase training than after a mixed-case training. In a second study, case was found not to affect the rapid naming of single letters. The combined results suggest that case mixing disrupted the multiletter features in pseudowords and that the disruption of these features can affect the acquisition of orthographic knowledge.     

A functional assessment of heterosocial initiation behaviors in adults

The present investigation was designed to assess the relationship between empirically defined behavioral strategies and ratings of social effectiveness, liking, and skill. Female subjects rated audiotapes of dyadic heterosocial interactions. The dyads' verbal behavior was manipulated experimentally such that each male actor exhibited one of two strategies, other-enhancement and positive self-presentation, and each female coactor exhibited one of two responses, encourages and discourages. After each audiotaped interaction, subjects rated each male on five questions: liking, continued interaction, effectiveness, social skill, and similarity. The results indicated that subjects distinguished between effective and ineffective strategies. The data obtained from all questions indicated that subjects preferred the male who was encouraged irrespective of what strategy he used. This study analyzed relevant variables within an interactional framework allowing for a functional, rather than topographic, analysis of social behavior. From this functional perspective, topographically different heterosocial initiation strategies may be viewed as appropriate or effective based on the reactions of the other person in the interaction.