Eye movements, not hypercompatible mappings, are critical for eliminating the cost of task set reconfiguration

Residual switch costs are notoriously difficult to eliminate. Yet Hunt and Klein (2002) eliminated them in a task that required observers to alternate between 8 trials of prosaccades and 8 trials of antisaccades, as long as there was at least 1 sec between the task cue and the onset of the saccade target. It was proposed that the elimination of residual switch costs occurred because prosaccade responses are computed very rapidly. These so-calledhypercompatible responses bypass memory retrieval stages of the response process, thereby eliminating the source of residual switch costs. Here we tested this hypothesis by requiring observers to alternate between responding with the finger that was vibrated (another task that meets the criteria for hypercompatibility) and responding with the finger of the opposite hand. Residual switch costs were not eliminated, suggesting that their elimination in Hunt and Klein (2002) was due to special properties of the prosaccade—antisaccade task.     

Effects of self-motion on attention in real 3D space

Human behavioral space is three-dimensional (3D), and when moving through 3D space individuals selectively allocate their attention to acquire necessary information. This study aimed to examine the characteristics of attention in real 3D space when observers were moving forward. In static and self-motion situations, relative and absolute cues were used. Results indicated that internal representation for allocation of attention in 3D space is in depth-aware mode whether in static or moving condition. Moreover, near superior asymmetrical switching of attention is more strongly manifested under moving than under static conditions. Our findings indicate that focusing of attention by relative and absolute cues is maintained in self-motion, and that allocation of attention during movement is more viewer-centered than when observers are static.     

Testing assumptions of deliberate practice theory, relevance, effort, and inherent enjoyment of practice on a novel task

This study examined three assumptions of the theory of deliberate practice: that deliberate practice is perceived as relevant for improving performance and that it requires effort, but that it is not perceived as being inherently enjoyable. Of particular interest was the assumption of inherent enjoyment of practice since that has been questioned in previous research. 30 undergraduate and graduate students combined practiced a maze memorization and recall task and rated relevance of practice for improving recall, the practice effort, and inherent enjoyment of practice. The findings were consistent with three assumptions, but also suggested that perceptions about relevance, effort, and inherent enjoyment of practice may change with increasing experience and performance.     

Antecedent priming at trace positions in Japanese long-distance scrambling

We report the results from three cross-modal lexical decision experiments investigating antecedent priming effects in Japanese. In the first two experiments we examined antecedent reactivation at the preverbal trace position in long-distance scrambling sentences. We found an interaction between the participants' working memory (WM) span and antecedent priming. For the high span group, the magnitude of antecedent priming at the trace position was significantly larger than at the earlier control position; for the low span group, on the other hand, there was no such difference. In a third experiment, we examined whether similar reactivation effects could be observed for argument expressions that are not base-generated adjacent to the verb. Contrary to scrambled objects, subject noun phrases (NPs) in canonically ordered sentences were not reactivated at the preverbal test position in either of the two participant groups. We argue that the priming effect observed in the high span group supports a trace-based account of long-distance scrambling. The degree of complexity of the experimental sentences was such that they exceeded the memory span of the low span group. We conclude that argument traces access their antecedents irrespective of the position of their subcategorizers.     

Clinical pastoral education: a physician's experience and reflection on the meaning of spiritual care in palliative care

In this article a physician reflects on her experience as a chaplain intern and how this Clinical Pastoral Education experience led to a deeper understanding of spiritual care in the palliative setting.     

Neural processing associated with true and false memory retrieval

We investigated the neural bases for false memory with fMRI by examining neural activity during retrieval processes that yielded true or false memories. We used a reality monitoring paradigm in which participants saw or imagined pictures of concrete objects. (A subsequent misinformation task was also used to increase false memory rates.) At test, fMRI data were collected as the participants determined whether they had seen or had only imagined the object at study. True memories were of seen pictures accurately endorsed as seen, and for false memories were of imagined pictures falsely endorsed as seen. Three distinct patterns of activity were observed: Left frontal and parietal activity was not different for true and for false memories, whereas activity was greater for true than for false memories in occipital visual regions and posterior portions of the parahippocampal gyrus, and activity was greater for false than for true memories in right anterior cingulate gyrus. Possible interpretations are discussed.     

Horses form cross-modal representations of adults and children

Animal Cognition - Recently, research on domestic mammals’ sociocognitive skills toward humans has been prolific, allowing us to better understand the human–animal relationship. For...     

VALUES MOTHERS HOLD FOR HANDICAPPED AND NONHANDICAPPED PRESCHOOL CHILDREN IN JAPAN,PUERTO RICO,AND THE UNITED STATES MAINLAND*

This study examines the values held by mothers in Japan, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Mainland for their handicapped and nonhandicapped preschoolers in the contexts of home and school. In order to study values, mothers from the three cultures were asked to rank twelve value items relating to four value areas: physical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and sociocultural. The value rankings were different in the three cultures and depended upon the home and school contexts. The presence of a diagnosed orthopedic and/or neurological impairment in the child had no overall effect on value ratings but did interact with culture and context to influence mothers' values.