A "snapshot" of declarative memory: Differing developmental trajectories in episodic and autobiographical memory

Episodic and autobiographical memory are clearly related, yet in both the adult and developmental literatures it is difficult to compare them because of differences in how the constructs are assessed, including differences in content, levels of control, and time since experience. To address these issues, we directly compared children's and adults' autobiographical and episodic memory using the same controlled paradigm. Participants engaged in a photo-taking activity in a museum (autobiographical encoding) and viewed others' photographs of the same museum exhibits (episodic encoding). At test, participants classified photos as ones they took, viewed, or novel. In the autobiographical condition older children and adults performed similarly; younger children's performance was lower than adults'. In contrast, in the episodic condition both groups of children performed more poorly than adults. The findings suggest the developmental primacy of autobiographical relative to episodic memory, and that traditional episodic tasks may underestimate older children's declarative memory abilities.     

What the stories children tell can tell about their memory: narrative skill and young children's suggestibility

The authors examined the relation between children's narrative ability, which has been identified as an important contributor to memory development, and suggestibility. Across 2 studies, a total of 112 preschool-aged children witnessed a staged event and were subsequently questioned suggestively. Results from Study 1 indicated that children's ability to provide a high-quality narrative of the event was related to resistance to suggestive questions, and narrative ability appeared to supersede age as a predictor of such resistance. In Study 2, children's general language and narrative abilities were measured in addition to their ability to produce a high-quality narrative about the target event. These results replicated Study 1's findings that children's ability to produce a high-quality narrative of a previously experienced event predicted resistance to suggestion. However, the quality of children's autobiographical memory narratives predicted shifting from denial to assent. Findings are considered in light of narrative's role in memory development and underlying mechanisms that may explain children's suggestibility.     

How status and stereotypes impact attributions to discrimination: The stereotype-asymmetry hypothesis

Past research suggests a status-asymmetry effect in attributions to discrimination such that people are more likely to make attributions to discrimination when the victim is from a lower status group than the perpetrator as compared to when the victim is from a higher status group than the perpetrator. The present studies test a stereotype-asymmetry effect, such that people are more likely to make attributions to discrimination when rejection occurs in a domain in which the victim is negatively rather than positively stereotyped. In Study 1 (observers) and Study 2 (victims), participants attributed rejection following a job interview to discrimination more when the victim was negatively stereotyped than when the victim was positively stereotyped. The stereotypicality of the domain was more important than the relative status of the victim and the perpetrator in determining judgments of discrimination. Thus stereotype-asymmetry is a key feature of the discrimination prototype.     

Working memory skills and educational attainment: evidence from national curriculum assessments at 7 and 14 years of age

The relationship between working memory skills and performance on national curriculum assessments in English, mathematics and science was explored in groups of children aged 7 and 14 years. At 7 years, children's levels of attainment in both English and mathematics were significantly associated with working memory scores, and in particular with performance on complex span tasks. At 14 years, strong links persisted between the complex working memory test scores and attainments levels in both mathematics and science, although ability in the English assessments showed no strong association with working memory skill. The results suggest that the intellectual operations required in the curriculum areas of mathematics and science are constrained by the general capacity of working memory across the childhood years. However, whereas success in the acquisition in literacy (tapped by the English assessments at the youngest age) was also linked with working memory capacity, achievements in the higher‐level skills of comprehension and analysis of English literature assessed at 14 years were independent of working memory capacity. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pancreatic Cancer Surveillance Among High-Risk Populations: Knowledge and Intent

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth most common cancer in both men and women in the United States. It has the lowest survival rate of all cancers, largely due to the presence of non-specific symptoms, leading to diagnosis at advanced stages. While the majority of cases of pancreatic cancer are sporadic, up to 10% may be associated with an inherited predisposition. Currently, there is no standard screening protocol for pancreatic cancer, although this will change in the future as technology improves. Additionally, there is little information regarding the perceptions and intent to screen for pancreatic cancer among those with an increased risk due to a hereditary cancer predisposition syndrome, which was the objective of this study. Focus groups and individual telephone interviews were conducted, with questions focused on knowledge about pancreatic cancer and screening, perceived motivators, and perceived barriers related to each of the screening techniques currently available. Participants were recruited from the High Risk Breast Cancer and Pancreatic Cancer Registries at Huntsman Cancer Institute. The findings of this study indicated that individuals from these high-risk groups have low knowledge levels of pancreatic cancer screening, despite their desire for this information. Motivation to undergo a particular screening technique is related to whether the test is recommended by a physician, cost, degree of invasiveness, and comfort level. This information is useful to genetics professionals who counsel at-risk individuals, physicians who formulate patient care plans, and translational researchers who are developing pancreatic screening methods.     

Perceptual learning and reasons-responsiveness

Perceptual experiences are not immediately responsive to reasons. You see a stick submerged in a glass of water as bent no matter how much you know about light refraction. Due to this isolation from reasons, perception is traditionally considered outside the scope of epistemic evaluability as justified or unjustified. Is perception really as independent from reasons as visual illusions make it out to be? I argue no, drawing on psychological evidence from perceptual learning. The flexibility of perceptual learning is a way of responding to new epistemic reasons. The resulting perceptual experiences are epistemically evaluable as justified or unjustified.     

THE EFFECTS OF VIEWING SAME-GENDER PHOTOGRAPHIC MODELS ON BODY-ESTEEM

This study was designed to investigate the effects of viewing samegender photographic models on women and men's body-esteem. Women and men completed body-esteem scales before and after viewing pictures of same-gender photographic models (experimental group) or landscapes (control group). Women scored significantly lower than men on the body-esteem scale [F(1, 90) = 58.5, p < .001]. Women [F(1, 90) = 8.70, p < .05] and men [F(1, 90) = 4.17, p < .05] in the experimental group showed a significant decrease in body-esteem after seeing the photographs and the controls showed no significant change [women F(1, 90) = 0.57; men F(1, 90) = 0.00]. Results suggest that upward comparisons are made by women and men when viewing attractive same-gender models.     

Evidence for Risk Estimate Precision: Implications for Individual Risk Communication

Actuarial risk assessment instruments using well-established predictor variables measured at the individual level (e.g., age, criminal history, psychopathy) discriminate well between recidivists and non-recidivists across diverse samples. Data indicating the relative risk of recidivism can inform policy decisions about allocating resources according to risk within a correctional system, consistent with the first of the risk–need–responsivity (RNR) principles. Evidence for the precision of absolute risk as applied to an individual based on scores from many samples, however, has proven challenging. In this paper, we present a study examining the association of actuarial risk estimate precision with sample size using the Post Conviction Risk Assessment (PCRA; Lowenkamp et al., 2013), in samples of up to 26,642 offenders. Results indicate that the precision of individual estimates can be demonstrated with sufficient sample size. We believe that the implications of absolute risk for the communication of an individual offender's risks have been poorly understood. We argue that the purpose of individual-level risk communication is to ensure the effective application of policy, which requires matching a new case to aggregate data. We illustrate how an offender's risk might thus be communicated, and conclude that this function is distinct from management of an individual's criminogenic needs and identification of effective and suitable treatments. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Source memory errors associated with reports of posttraumatic flashbacks: a proof of concept study

Flashbacks are involuntary, emotion-laden images experienced by individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The qualities of flashbacks could under certain circumstances lead to source memory errors. Participants with PTSD wrote a trauma narrative and reported the experience of flashbacks. They were later presented with stimuli from flashback and non-flashback parts of their narrative, mixed with foils from the narrative of another participant, and judged whether they belonged to their own narrative. They also reported whether stimuli elicited a flashback during this recognition test. Overall reporting a flashback at test was associated with significantly better recognition performance. Flashbacks were occasionally reported to foil stimuli, which were then likely to be wrongly attributed to the person's own narrative. This provides proof of concept of a cognitive mechanism that could potentially account for some cases of false trauma memories.